

Book 



1 

COPYRLGKt DEPOSIT 






THE RAIN-GIRL 



THE 

RAIN-GIRL 

♦ 

A ROMANCE OF TODAY 

BY 

THE 

AUTHOR 

OF 

“PATRICIA BRENT, 
SPINSTER” 


NEW YORK 

GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 





COPYRIGHT, 1919, 

BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



22 1919 

©CL A 5 2 9 9 0 4 
Mecordprf 

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

Am b W 


TO 

THE RAIN-GIRL 

You who know will understand, 

You who see on either hand 
Tragedies that seem to say, 

“Light o’ love, ” and “Lack-a-day.” 

Spring but tarries for an hour, 
Summer sheds her golden shower, 
Then autumn with her amber horn, 
Gathers all ere winter’s born. 

You who know will understand. 

You who see on either hand 
Tragedies that seem to say, 

“Light o’ love,” and “Lack-a-day.” 



CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 



PAGE 

L 

The Road to Nowhere .... 


II 

II. 

“The Two Dragons” and the Rain-Girl 

2 6 

III. 

Lost Days and the Doctor . 


4 6 

IV. 

The Call of the Rain-Girl . 


63 

V. 

The Search Begins . . . 


74 

VI. 

Lord Drewitt’ s Perplexities 


85 

VII. 

Lady Drewitt Speaks Her Mind 


99 

VIII. 

The Heiress Indisposed .... 


hi 

IX. 

The Pursuit to Folkestone . 


122 

X. 

Lord Drewitt on Marriage . 


134 

XI. 

The Meeting with the Rain-Girl . 


148 

XII. 

The Thirty-Nine Articles . 


165 

XIII. 

A Question of Ankles .... 


183 

XIV. 

The Danger Line 


195 

XV. 

London and Lord Drewitt . 


213 

XVI. 

The Nine Days Ended .... 


223 

XVII. 

Dr. Tallis Prescribes .... 


240 

XVIII. 

The Deluge 


252 

XIX. 

The Morning After 


265 

XX. 

Lady Dre witt’s Alarm .... 


278 

XXI. 

Lord Drewitt: Ambassador . 
vii 


294 


































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THE RAIN-GIRL 


CHAPTER I 

THE ROAD TO NOWHERE 


N ATURE discourages eccentricity !” 

The ridiculous words rang in Richard 
Beresford’s ears as he stalked resolutely 
along the rain-soaked high-road. They seemed to 
keep time with the crunch of his boots upon the wet 
gravel. The wind picked them up and, with a spat- 
ter of rain, flung them full in his face. The pack 
on his back caught the last word and thumped it into 
his shoulders. 

‘‘Nature discourages eccentricity !” 

Where he had read the absurd phrase he could 
not remember, probably in some insignificant maga- 
zine article upon popular science. That, however, 
was no excuse for remembering it, and upon this of 
all days. It had not even the virtue of being epi- 
grammatical; it was just a dull, stupid catchpenny 
phrase of some silly ass desirous of catching the 
editorial eye. 

As he plodded on through the rain, he strove to 


ii 


12 THE RAIN-GIRL 

confute and annihilate the wretched thing, to crush 
it by the heavy artillery of reason. Nature herself 
was eccentric, he told himself. Had she not once 
at least sent snow on Derby Day? Did she not 
ruin with frost her own crops? 

“Na-ture - dis - cou - ra - ges - ec - cen- tri - ci - 
ty!” crunched his boots. 

“Ec-cen-tri-ci-ty,” pounded his pack. 

“Tri-ci-ty,” shrieked the wind gleefully. 

Confound it I He would think of other things; 
of the life before him, of the good pals who had 
‘‘gone west,” of books and pictures, of love and to- 
bacco, of romance and wandering, of all that made 
life worth while. It was absurd to be hypnotised 
by a phrase. 

No; the moment his thoughts were left to them- 
selves, they returned precipitately to the little Grub 
Street absurdity. It clung to him like a pursuing 
fury, this nonsensical, illogical and peculiarly irritat- 
ing phrase. 

“Nature discourages eccentricity!” 

He strove to recall all the eccentricities of Na- 
ture of which he had ever heard. Confute the ac- 
cursed thing he would at all costs. 

It was by way of fat women and five legged sheep 
that he eventually stumbled across his own family. 
In spite of the rain and of his own detestably un- 
comfortable condition, he laughed aloud. Every 
relative he had was eccentric; yet heaven knew 
they had not lacked encouragement! 

From the other side of the hedge a miserable- 


THE ROAD TO NOWHERE 


13 


looking white horse gazed at him wonderingly. 
Truly these humans were strange beings to find mat- 
ter for laughter on such a day. 

Yes, his relatives were eccentric enough to think 
him mad. There was Aunt Caroline, # for instance, 
who rather prided herself upon being different from 
other people; yet she had married a peer; was ex- 
tremely wealthy, and as exclusive as a colony of 
Agapemones. No one could say that she had been 
discouraged. 

The thought of Caroline, Lady Drewitt, brought 
Beresford back to his present situation, and the 
cause of his struggling along a country road in the 
face of a south-westerly wind, that threw the rain 
against his face in vicious little slaps, on the most 
pitifully unspring-like first of May he ever remem- 
bered. Again, the day brought him back to his 
starting point: “Nature discourages eccentricity.” 
In short, Lady Drewitt, the weather and the phrase 
all seemed so mixed up and confused as to defy en- 
tire disentanglement. 

The weather could be dismissed in a few words. 
It was atrocious, depressing, English. Ahead 
stretched the rain-soddened high-road, flanked on 
either side by glistening hedges, from which the 
water fell in solemn and reluctant drops. Heavy 
clouds swung their moody way across the sky, just 
clearing the tree-tops. Groups of miserable cat- 
tle huddled together under hedges, or beneath trees 
that gave no shelter from the pitiless rain. Here 
and there some despairing beast lay down in the 


14 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


open, as if refusing to continue the self-deception. 
The tree trunks glistened like beavers; for the rain 
beat relentlessly through their thin foliage. In 
short, the world was wet to the skin, and Richard 
Beresford with the world. 

His thoughts drifted back to the little family 
dinner-party at Drewitt House, and the bomb-shell 
he had launched into its midst. It was his aunt’s 
enquiry as to when he proposed returning to the 
Foreign Office that had been the cause of all the 
trouble. 

His simple statement that he had done with the 
Foreign Office and all its ways, and intended to go 
for a long walking-tour, had been received with con- 
sternation. He smiled at the recollection of the 
scene; Lady Drewitt’s anger, his cousin, Lord 
Drewitt’s lifting of his eyebrows, the snap in Ed- 
ward Seymour’s ferret-like little eyes, Mrs. Ed- 
ward’s look of frightened interrogation directed at 
Lady Drewitt, and her subsequent endeavour to mir- 
ror her aunt’s disapproval. It was all so comical, 
so characteristic. 

He had found it impossible to explain what had 
led up to his decision. He could not tell Lady 
Drewitt and the Seymours that the trenches had 
revolutionised his Ideas, that a sort of intellectual 
Bolshevism had taken possession of him, that he 
now took a more detached and impersonal view of 
life, that things which had mattered before were not 
the things which mattered now. They would not 
have understood. 


THE ROAD TO NOWHERE 


15 


He could not explain that “out there” everything 
had taken on a new value and new standards had 
been set up, that in a flash the clock had been put 
back centuries; food and life alone had mattered. 
A few yards away Death had lain in wait to flick 
them out with a disdainful finger, and every man, 
some consciously, others instinctively, was asking 
himself the great riddle — Why? 

Instead of endeavouring to explain all this, 
Beresford had contented himself by saying that the 
War had made a difference, had somehow changed 
him, made him restless. He had been purposely 
vague, remembering Lady Drewitt’ s habit of clutch- 
ing at a phrase as a peg for her scorn and ridicule. 
He had been consci6us of making out a very poor 
case for himself, and mentally he cursed his cousin, 
Lord Drewitt, for his silence. He at least must 
have understood, he had been through it all. 

Lady Drewitt listened with obvious impatience. 
At last she had broken out with: 

“Richard, you’re a fool.” The words had been 
rapped out with conviction rather than acrimony. 

“Logically I suppose I am, Aunt Caroline,” he 
had replied, as he signalled to Drewitt to circulate 
the port in his direction. 

“What are you going to live on?” Lady Drewitt 
demanded. “You’ve no money of your own.” 

“Perhaps he proposes to borrow from you, Aunt,” 
Lord Drewitt had said, as he lighted another ciga- 
rette. 

Lady Drewitt ignored the remark. 


16 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“But, Richard, I don’t understand.” Mrs. Ed- 
ward Seymour had puckered up her pretty, washed- 
out face. “Where are you going to, and what shall 
you do?” 

“He wants to become a vagabond,” snapped Lady 
Drewitt, “tramping from town to town, like those 
dreadful men we saw last week when motoring to 
Peterborough.” 

“I see;” but there was nothing in Mrs. Edward’s 
tone suggestive of enlightenment. 

“It’s the war,” announced Edward Seymour, a 
peevish-looking little man with no chin and a fore- 
head that reached almost to the back of his neck, 
who by virtue of a post at the Ministry of Muni- 
tions had escaped the comb of conscription. 

Lord Drewitt screwed his glass into his eye and 
gazed at Seymour with interest. 

“Don’t be a fool, Edward,” snapped Lady 
Drewitt; and Mrs. Edward Seymour looked across 
at her husband, disapproval in her eye. It was hid- 
den from none that the Seymours were “after the 
old bird’s money,” as Jimmy Pentland put it. It 
was he who had christened them “the Vultures,” a 
name that had stuck. 

“What do you propose to do when you have spent 
all your money?” Lady Drewitt had next demanded. 

“In all probability,” said Lord Drewitt, “he will 
get run in and come to us to bail him out. Per- 
sonally I hate police-courts. I often wonder why 
they instruct magistrates in law at the expense of 
hygiene.” 


THE ROAD TO NOWHERE IT 

Lady Drewitt had looked across the table with 
a startled expression in her eyes. It had suddenly 
dawned upon her that unpleasant consequences to 
herself might ensue from this rash determination 
on the part of her nephew to seek his future happi- 
ness amidst by-ways and hedges. 

“It seems to me ” began Edward Seymour, 

in a thin, protesting voice. 

“Never mind what it seems to you,” said Lady 
Drewitt, whereat Edward Seymour had collapsed, 
screwing up his little features into an expression of 
pain. Mrs. Edward had caught him full in the 
centre of the left shin with the sharply pointed toe 
of her shoe. 

At Drewitt House Mrs. Edward’s feet were never 
still when her husband was within range. Lord 
Drewitt had once suggested that he should wear 
shin-guards, Mrs. Edward’s methods of wireless 
telegraphy being notorious. Sometimes she missed 
her spouse, as other guests knew to their cost. 
Once she had landed full on the tibia of a gouty 
colonial bishop, whose language in a native dialect 
had earned for him the respect of every man pres- 
ent, when later translated with adornments by one 
of the company. 

“If Edward had spent days and nights in the 
trenches,” Lord Drewitt had said, as, with great 
intentness, he peeled a walnut, “he would under- 
stand why Richard shrinks from the Foreign Of- 
fice.” 

“It would be impossible,” Beresford said, “to set- 


18 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


tie down again to the monotony of a life of ten till 
four after — after the last four years.” 

“Unless, of course, you happen to be a foun- 
tain,” Lord Drewitt had interpolated, without look- 
ing up from his walnut. 

“I said it was the war,” broke in Edward Sey- 
mour, looking triumphantly across at his wife, em- 
boldened by the knowledge that his legs were 
tucked safely away beneath his chair. 

“And what do you propose to do?” Lady Drewitt 
had demanded, with the air of one who knew she 
had propounded a conundrum to which there is no 
answer. 

“Oh,” said Beresford airily, “I shall just walk into 
the sun. You see, Aunt Caroline,” he said, bend- 
ing forward, “I’ve only got one life and ” 

“And how many do you suppose I have?” Lady 
Drewitt had demanded scornfully, snapping her jaws 
in a peculiarly unpleasant way she had. 

“I repeat, Aunt Caroline,” he had proceeded im- 
perturbably, “that I have only one life, and rather 
than go back to the F.O. I prefer to ” 

“Seek nature in her impregnable fastnesses,” sug- 
gested Lord Drewitt, looking across at his cousin 
with a smile. 

“Impregnable fiddlesticks,” Lady Drewitt had 
cried derisively, “he will get his feet wet and die of 
bronchitis or pneumonia.” 

“And we shall have to go down to the inquest,” 
said Lord Drewitt, “and lunch execrably at some 


THE ROAD TO NOWHERE 


19 


local inn. No, Richard, you mustn’t do it. I can- 
not risk our aunt’s digestion.” 

Lady Drewitt always discouraged the idea that 
life contained either sentiment or ideals. To be in- 
tangible in conversation with her was impossible. 
She admitted of no distinction between imagination 
and lying. To her all extremes were foolish, opti- 
mists and pessimists being equally culpable. She 
pooh-poohed anything and everything that was not 
directly or indirectly connected with Burke (once 
she would have admitted “L’Almanach de Gotha”). 
Burke to her girlish eyes had always been the open 
sesame to happiness. 

As for the Seymours, they were merely Lady 
Drewitt’s echoes. Lord Drewitt had once said they 
reminded him of St. Paul’s definition of love. 

As Beresford smoked his own cigarettes and 
drank Lady Drewitt’s excellent port, he was con- 
scious that there were a hundred and one reasons 
that he might have advanced to any one but his aunt. 
It would have been foolish to tell her that within 
him had been awakened a spirit of romance and ad- 
venture, that the wanderlust was upon him. 

She would merely have said that he must see Sir 
Edmund Tobbitt, her pet physician, and have for- 
bidden him to use German words in her presence. 

“And how do you propose to live whilst you are 
pursuing your ridiculous Nature, exposing yourself 
to all sorts of weather?” Lady Drewitt had next de- 
manded. 

“Well, I’ve got nearly two hundred pounds,” 


20 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


Beresford had replied, “and by the time IVe sold 
my books and things I shall have fully another hun- 
dred.” 

“You’re going to sell everything,” gasped Mrs. 
Edward Seymour. 

“Yes, all but the clothes I wear and an extra suit 
I shall carry with me,” Beresford had smilingly 
retorted, enjoying the look of consternation upon his 
cousin’s face. “When I leave London there will 
not remain in it a shilling’s worth of my property.” 

“Richard, you’re a fool.” Lady Drewitt seemed 
to find comfort in the phrase. “Your poor dear 

mother was a fool too. She ” Lady Drewitt 

broke off suddenly and gazed searchingly at her 
nephew. 

“When did this ridiculous idea first take pos- 
session of you?” she had demanded, with the air 
of a counsel for the prosecution about to make a 
great point. 

“I’ve been a vagabond all my life,” he had con- 
fessed with a smile. “I’ve never been really re- 
spectable, you know.” 

Lady Drewitt’ s jaws had met with a snap. Lord 
Drewitt gazed at her with interest. Neither he 
nor Beresford had ever permitted themselves to be 
overawed by their aunt. They were the only two 
relatives she possessed who were not ill at ease in 
her presence. 

“You’re Irish,” she continued relentlessly, ad- 
dressing Beresford in a voice that savoured of ac- 
cusation. 


THE ROAD TO NOWHERE 


21 


“Half Irish,” Beresford had corrected. 

“I remember now,” there was a marked sol- 
emnity in her voice, “a week before you were born, 
your poor dear mother was greatly frightened by 
a tramp who had managed to get into the garden.” 

“Then,” Lord Drewitt had said, “Richard must 
not be blamed. Like Napoleon, he is clearly a man 
of destiny.” 

“But,” said Edward Seymour, screwing up his 
face as was his wont when asking a question, “I 
don’t see why being in the trenches should make 
Richard want to become a tramp.” 

“You wouldn’t, my dear Teddy,” Lord Drewitt 
had said softly. “You see it’s an Ai question and 
you are a C3 man.” 

Mrs. Edward had flashed a vindictive look at 
Lord Drewitt, then with a swift change of expres- 
sion she turned to Lady Drewitt. 

“Perhaps now that Richard knows how — how it 
would pain you, Aunt Caroline, he won’t ” 

“Don’t be a fool, Cecily,” snapped Lady Drewitt; 
whereat Edward Seymour had looked across at his 
wife with a leer of triumph. 

That night as they had walked away from Drewitt 
House, Beresford had explained more fully to Lord 
Drewitt what had led up to his decision to cut adrift 
from the old life. 

“My dear Richard,” he had said with a sigh of 
regret, “I wish I had the Aunt’s courage and your 
convictions.” 

Beresford smiled at the thought of that evening. 


22 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


He paused to light his pipe. He looked about him, 
hoping to find somewhere a break in the clouds giv- 
ing promise of fine weather — for the morrow. No; 
Nature’s frown showed no sign of lifting. It was 
as if she had decided never to attempt the drying 
up of this drenched and dripping landscape. 

He turned once more and faced the wind and 
rain. His thoughts returned to his family. He 
had always been something of a problem to them. 
As a standard by which to measure failure, he had 
been not without his uses. He had passed through 
Winchester and Oxford without attracting to him- 
self particular attention, enviable or otherwise. He 
had missed his cricket “blue” through that miracle 
of misfortune, a glut of talent, and he had taken a 
moderately good degree. He had come down from 
Oxford and the clouds, loving sport, art, litera- 
ture, and above all beauty. 

Mrs. Edward Seymour had once remarked plain- 
tively to Lady Drewitt that it seemed so odd that 
a man who had nearly got his cricket “blue” should 
be fond of roses and wall-papers, poetry and sky- 
larks. “It seemed,” she ventured to add, “not 
quite nice.” Whereat Lady Drewitt had besought 
her not to be a fool; but to remember that the Bat- 
tle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of 
Eton. Mrs. Edward Seymour had gone away 
sorely puzzled as to her Aunt’s exact meaning; but 
not daring to enquire. 

Coming down from Oxford, Beresford had been 
shot unprotesting into the Foreign Office, which he 


THE ROAD TO NOWHERE 23 

had accepted as part of the enigma of life until that 
fateful August 4th, 1914, when he had enlisted. ! 

That was four and a half years ago, and now, 
having thoroughly earned the disapproval of his 
aunt, he had turned his face to the open road, a 
vagabond; but a free man. The blue sky would 
be above him ; he had pictured it all, the white flecks 
of cloud swimming across the sun day by day, and 
the winking of the stars by night. There would be 
the apple and the plum-blossom, the pear and the 
cherry. There would be the birds, the lowing of 
cattle and the bleating of sheep. Then there would 
be the voices of the haymakers, the throb of the 
mowing-machines and the rumble of the heavily 
laden wains, as they grumbled their way to the rick- 
yard. The night sounds, the sudden whirr of a 
frightened pheasant, the hoot of some marauding 
owl, the twitter of a dreaming thrush; he had real- 
ised them all, expected them all — everything but 
the rain. 

He had foreseen rain, it is true^the storm, the 
flood even; but they had always presented them- 
selves to his mind’s eye with himself safely quar- 
tered in some comfortable old inn. 

“Nature discourages eccentricity.” 

Nature was discouraging him by flooding the earth 
on the first day of his adventure. 

“I wonder what Aunt Caroline would say if she 
saw me now?” he muttered. 

He laughed aloud at the thought. 

' Suddenly he stopped, not only laughing, but 


24 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


walking, and stood staring in astonishment at a gate 
that lay a few yards back from the roadside. 

In an instant Lady Drewitt, Nature, eccentricity 
and the weather were banished from his thoughts. 
Nothing that his imagination was capable of sug- 
gesting could have caused him more astonishment 
than what he saw perched upon this gate giving ac- 
cess to a wayside meadow. Had it been a griffin, 
a unicorn, or the Seven-Headed Beast of the Apoc- 
alypse, he would have accepted it without question 
as the natural phenomenon of an abnormal day. 

It was not a griffin, a unicorn, or the Beast of 
the Apocalypse that he saw; but a girl perched jaun- 
tily upon the top bar of the roadside gate, medita- 
tively smoking a cigarette. She seemed indifferent 
to the rain, indifferent to the wretchedness of her 
surroundings, indifferent to Beresford’s presence, 
indifferent to everything — she was merely a spec- 
tator. 

For some seconds he regarded her in astonish- 
ment. The trim, grey, tailor-made costume, knap- 
sack, tweed hat with waterproof covering — he men- 
tally registered them all; but what struck him most 
was the girl’s face. Nondescript but charming, was 
his later verdict; but now his whole attention was 
arrested by her eyes. Large and grey, with whites 
that were almost blue, and heavy dark lashes, they 
gazed at him gravely, wonderingly; but quite with- 
out any suggestion of curiosity. 

For nearly a minute he stood staring at her in 
astonishment. Then suddenly realising the rude- 


THE ROAD TO NOWHERE 35 

ness of his attitude, he slowly and reluctantly turned 
to the wind and continued his way. 

“A rain-girl,” he muttered. “I wonder if she 
knows that Nature discourages eccentricity?” 


CHAPTER II 


“the two dragons’’ and the rain-girl 

D INNER will be ready in ten minutes, sir.” 

The waiter led the way to a small table 
on the right-hand side of the fireplace, in 
which burned a large fire surmounted by a log that 
crackled and spat a cheerful welcome. 

“Empty!” remarked Beresford as he looked 
round the dining-room. 

“It’s the weather, sir,” explained the waiter in 
an apologetic tone, as he gave a push to the log with 
his boot; then, after a swift glance round to satisfy 
himself that everything was as it should be, he with- 
drew. 

Beresford shivered. The day’s wetting had 
chilled him. What a day it had been. “The Two 
Dragons” was a godsend. 

As he warmed himself before the fire, he men- 
tally reviewed the events of the day, and came to 
the conclusion that there had been only one event, 
the girl on the gate. 

For the past two hours her eyes had entirely 
eclipsed that absurd little phrase that had so ob- 
sessed his mind earlier in the day. It had been a 
strange day, he mused, a day of greyness : grey sky, 
26 


THE TWO DRAGONS” 


27 


grey sheets of rain, a grey prospect before him, and 
then that girl’s grey eyes. They had seemed to 
change everything. They were like grey fire, seem- 
ing to blot out the other greys, as the dawn makes 
the stars to pale. 

It was to him a new experience to find a girl 
monopolising his thoughts. The habit of a life- 
time had been to place women somewhere between 
dances and croquet. He had flirted with them in a 
superficial way, they had amused him; but they had 
never bulked largely in his life. Tommy Knowles 
of “the House” had once said that there was little 
hope for a country composed of men such as Beres- 
ford, who placed runs before kisses, and saw more 
in a dropped goal than a glad eye. 

He seemed to have had so little time for girls. 
There had been games to play, books to read, pic- 
tures to see, and such a host of other interests that 
women had been rather crowded out. Somehow 
they never seemed to strike an interesting note in 
conversation. It was invariably about the plays 
they had seen, the band that was playing, the quality 
of the floor upon which they were dancing, common 
friends, or else gush about George Bernard Shaw, 
or Maeterlinck. 

He fell to wondering what Aunt Caroline or the 
Edward Seymours would have thought of her. 
They regarded him as mad because he preferred the 
open road to the Foreign Office; but if they were to 
see a girl sitting on a gate in the rain, smoking a 
cigarette with apparent enjoyment, they would in 


28 


THE RAIN-GIRL 

all probability question* not only her reason, but her 
sense of delicacy. 

The Rain-Girl (as Beresford mentally called her) 
obviously possessed character; but why was she 
tramping alone upon an English high-road, particu- 
larly when the heavens were drenching the earth 
with cold and cheerless rain? It was a queer thing 
for a girl to do, queer beyond analysis or compre- 
hension. What would she have done had he spoken 
to her? In all probability have snubbed him; yet 
surely two strangers might pass the time of day upon 
the highway, even though they were pf opposite 
sexes. 

It had been an absurd sort of day, Beresford de- 
cided, and the sooner it were blotted from his mem- 
ory the better; still he would like to see her again. 
Then he fell to speculating as to which direction she 
had taken. 

Would dinner never be ready? Again he shiv- 
ered, in spite of the heat of the fire. He would be 
all right, he told himself, as soon as he had eaten 
something. That waiter was a liar. More than 
a quarter of an hour had elapsed since he had prom- 
ised dinner in ten minutes. He rang the bell. A 
few seconds later the door opened. 

“Will dinner be long?” he enquired from where 
he stood facing the fire. 

“They tell me it is ready now .’ 1 

He span round with automatic suddenness, and 
found himself gazing into the same grey eyes that, 


‘‘THE TWO DRAGONS” 


29 

for the last two hours, seemed to have occupied his 
thoughts to the exclusion of all else. 

“The Rain-Girl 1” The words seemed to come 
involuntarily. Then he added in confusion, “I — 
er — beg your pardon. I — I thought it was — I had 

just rung, I ” Then he lapsed into silence and 

stood staring. 

“I quite understand,” she said, with a smile of 
perfect self-possession, as she approached the fire. 

Yes; it certainly was the Rain-Girl; hut how 
changed. Her dusky hair, which grew low down 
on her forehead and temples, was daintily dressed, 
and she looked very slim and shapely in a simple 
gown of some nondescript colour between a brown 
and a grey, which clung in simple folds about her. 
As she stood holding out her hands to the warmth 
of the fire, he recovered from his surprise. Obvi- 
ously the curious happenings of the day were not 
yet ended. 

Deciding that it was embarrassing for two peo- 
ple to stand at the same fire without speaking, 
Beresford retired to his table just as the waiter en- 
tered with the soup. Seeing the Rain-Girl, the 
waiter hurried across to the table on the other side 
of the fireplace and withdrew the chair invitingly. 
She seated herself with a smile of acknowledgment. 

She was evidently not inclined to be sociable, 
Beresford decided. Surely two people dining alone 
in the same inn might exchange a few common- 
places; but she seemed determined to discourage any 
attempt towards friendliness. All through the 


30 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


soup Beresford chafed at British insular prejudice. 
What good had the war done if it had not broken 
down this foolish barrier? Here were two people 
alone in an inn-parlour, yet they were doomed to 
dine at separate tables. He was piqued, too, at the 
girl’s obvious indifference to his presence, a fact of 
which he had assured himself by surreptitious 
glances in her direction. 

As the meal progressed, he became more and 
more incensed at her supremely unreasonable at- 
titude. What right had she to consign him to a dull 
and tedious dinner? Surely the day had been a 
miserable enough affair without this totally unnec- 
essary insistence of mid-Victorian prejudice and the 
segregation of the sexes. It was absurd, provin- 
cial, suburban, parochial, in fact it was most 
damnably irritating, he decided. 

What would she do when the meal was over? 
Draw up to the fire, go to the smoking-room, or 
clear off to bed? Could he not do something t;o 
precipitate a crisis? But what? If he were a 
woman he might faint; but he could not call to mind 
ever having read of a hero of romance who fainted, 
even for the purpose of making the heroine’s ac- 
quaintance. He might choke, be seized with a con- 
vulsion, develop signs of insanity. What would she 
do then, this self-possessed young woman? Ring 
for the waiter most likely. 

Gradually there became engendered in his mind 
a dull resentment at her attitude of splendid isola- 
tion. She evidently preferred solitude, enjoyed it 


“THE TWO DRAGONS” 


31 


in fact. He would indulge her by going to the 
smoking-room as soon as he had finished. In spite 
of this decision, he continued to watch her covertly, 
noticing how little she ate. He himself was eating 
practically nothing; he had no appetite. Had they 
both caught a chill? What was the waiter think- 
ing as he took away plates containing food little 
more than tasted? It was like a Charles Dana 
Gibson picture, but for the absence of the little cupid 
with an arrow fitted to his bow. 

It was ridiculous. 

Beresford pushed back his chair with some os-; 
tentation and walked towards the door. She had 
spoiled the soup, rendered insipid the fish and made 
detestably unpalatable the joint — in short she had 
spoiled everything. He would take coffee in the 
smoking-room, there was a large fire there and — it 
was strange how thoroughly chilled he was. Yes, 
he would clear out, perhaps she would breakfast 
early in the morning and take her departure before 
he was down. At the door he turned slightly to get 
a glimpse of her table. No, she had not even 
looked up. 

He closed the door and, walking across to the 
smoking-room, threw himself into a comfortable 
chair by the roaring fire, rang for coffee and pro- 
ceeded to light his pipe and smoke; the Rain-Girl 
out of his thoughts. 

Presently the waiter entered with the coffee, as 
Beresford judged by the click of crockery. The 
man placed a table in front of the fire on Beres- 


32 THE RAIN-GIRL 

ford’s left; then, putting upon it the tray, he quietly 
withdrew. 

Yes, coffee would be good on a night like this, 
Beresford decided as he turned to the tray, where, 
to his surprise, he found two cups. 

“What the ” then he suddenly realised that 

his late companion at dinner, who was not a com- 
panion at all, was probably also taking coffee in the 
smoking-room. Here was a fine point of etiquette, 
he decided. There was nothing for. it but to wait. 
He was.curious to see if this linking together of their 
coffees would cause her to unbend. Fate was tak- 
ing a hand in the affair. 

It was obviously impossible to pour out his own 
coffee and leave her the remainder. Should he ring 
for the waiter? No, the coffee should act as mas- 
ter of the ceremonies and bridge the gulf between 
them. Placing the coffee-pot and the milk-jug on 
the hearth, he waited, substituting a cigarette for 
his briar, lest its rich, juicy note might prove un- 
musical to feminine ears. For ten minutes he 
waited. Had the waiter merely made a mistake in 
bringing two 1 cups instead of one? Possibly at this 
very moment she was enjoying her coffee in the din- 
ing-room. After all perhaps there was only 
enough for one. Leaning forward, he picked up 
the coffee-pot, lifted the lid and peered in. It was 
full. 

As he raised his eyes from the contemplation 
of the contents of the coffee-pot, it was to meet those 
of the Rain-Girb gazing quizzically down at him. 


“THE TWO DRAGONS” 


He started back, nearly dropping the coffee-pot, and 
managed to scramble to his feet, coffee-pot in hand, 
conscious that he had flushed as if caught in some 
illicit act. This girl certainly had a curious habit 
of appearing at odd and dramatic moments. 

“I was looking to see if it was coffee for one or 
coffee for two,” he explained. 

She looked at him gravely, obviously a little puz- 
zled; then, catching sight of the two cups upon the 
tray, she smiled. 

“How stupid of him,” she said, “and you’ve 
waited?” Her eyebrows were lifted in interroga- 
tion. 

“I was just investigating,” said Beresford, feel- 
ing more at ease now that he was able to explain. 
“It was a sort of game. If there was enough only 
for one, I would ignore the second cup; if for two, 
I would wait.” 

She smiled again and sank into the chair on the 
opposite side of the fire, holding out her hands to the 
blaze. 

Beresford stood looking down at her, the coffee- 
pot still in his hand. 

She seemed entirely to have forgotten his pres- 
ence. She certainly was a most amazing creature, 
he decided; but that was no reason why he should 
be done out of his coffee. 

“Do you take it black or with milk?” he enquired 
in a matter-of-fact tone. 

“I’m so sorry,” she cried, looking at him with a 
start, “I— I ” 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


34 

He smiled down at her and proceeded to fill the 
cups. “Did you say black?” 

“Please.” 

Lifting the tray and turning round he found her 
eyes fixed upon him. With a smile of thanks she 
took a cup and dropped into it two lumps of sugar. 
She was still regarding him with serious eyes. 

“Didn’t you pass me on the road this afternoon?” 
she asked as he resumed his seat. 

“With reluctance, yes.” 

“With reluctance?” she repeated. 

“I wanted to know why you were sitting on a 
gate on such a day, apparently enjoying it and, 
frankly, I’ve been wondering about it ever since. 
May I smoke?” he concluded. 

She smiled her permission as, opening a bag that 
hung from her wrist, she drew out a cigarette-case. 
“But why shouldn’t any one want to sit on a gate in 
the rain?” she queried as he held a match to her ciga- 
rette. 

“I don’t know,” he confessed, “except that no 
one seems to enjoy the rain just for the rain’s sake.” 

“That’s true,” she said dreamily. “I love the 
rain, and I’m sorry for it.” 

“Sorry for it?” 

“Yes,” she replied, “so few people find pleasure 
in the rain. I’ve never heard any one speak well 
of it in this country. Farmers do sometimes, 
but ” she paused. 

“There’s generally either*too much or too lit- 
tle,” he suggested. * 


“THE TWO DRAGONS” 


She nodded brightly. “In some countries the 
rain is looked upon almost as a god.” 

“I suppose it’s a matter of whether it gives you 
vegetables or rheumatism,” he said as he lighted a 
second cigarette. 

She looked up quickly; then, with a little gurgling 
laugh, she nodded. 

“In any case I like to sit and listen to it,” she 
said, “and I love tramping in the rain.” 

Beresford regarded her curiously. What a 
queer sort of girl and what eyes, they were won- 
derful. Behind their limpid and serious greyness 
there lurked a something that puzzled him. They 
held wonderful possibilities. 

“Personally I think less of the rain than of my 
own comfort,” he confessed. 

“Auntie always says that I’m a little mad,” she 
said with the air of one desiring to be just. “Some- 
times she omits the ‘little.’ ” 

“That’s rather like my Aunt Caroline,” he said, 
“she holds the same view about me. She calls me 
a fool. It amounts to the same thing. Directness 
is her strong point.” 

“I suppose we all appear a little mad to our 
friends,” said the Rain-Girl with a smile. 

“Aunt Caroline’s not a friend, she’s a relative,” 
he hastened to explain. 

The girl smiled as she gazed at the spiral of 
smoke rising from her cigarette. 

“I’m always a little sorry for outraged rela- 
tives,” she said. 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“I’m not,” with decision. “Because they’ve got 
no tails to wag themselves, they object to our wag-* 
ging ours.” 

“But hasn’t the last four years changed all that?” 
she asked. 

“You can walk down Piccadilly during the Sea* 
son in a cap and a soft collar,” conceded Beresford, 
“but that scarcely implies emancipation.” 

“I don’t agree with you,” she said smilingly. 

“But a change en masse doesn’t imply the growth 
of individuality,” he persisted. “If all the potatoes 
in the world suddenly took it into their heads to be- 
come red, or all the cabbages blue, we should merely 
remark the change and promptly become accuse 
tomed to it.” 

“I see what you mean,” she said, and he noticed 
a slight twitching at the corners of her mouth. 
“You mean that I’m a red potato, or a blue cab- 
bage.” 

He laughed. This girl was singularly easy to 
talk to. 

“I’m afraid I’m something of a red potato my- 
self,” he confessed. “It’s only a few days ago that 
my aunt told me so. She expressed it differently; 
but no doubt that was what she meant.” 

“Oh; but I have to bleach again in a few days,” 
she said. “Within a week I have to meet auntie 
in London, and then I shall become afraid of the 
rain because of my frocks and hats.” She made a 
moue of disgust; then, catching Beresford’s eye, she 
laughed. 


‘ 


“THE TWO DRAGONS” 37 

“Do you live in London?” he asked, grasping at 
this chance of finding out something about her. 

“We’re going there for the Season,” she said, “to 
a hotel of all places.” 

“May I ask which?” inquired Beresford, seiz- 
ing this opportunity with avidity. “I know most of 
them,” he added lamely. 

“The Ritz-Carlton.” She shuddered. 

“I’ve always heard it quite well-spoken of,” he 
said with mock seriousness. 

“Ugh!” she grimaced. “I so dislike all that; but 
auntie insists.” 

“She is conventional?” he suggested. 

“As conventional as the suburbs. I’m supposed 
to be with friends in Yorkshire now,” she added with 
the smile of a mischievous child. “If she could 
see me here, she would take to her bed with an at- 
tack of nerves. Poor auntie! Sometimes I am 
quite sorry for her,” and again the little gurgling 
laugh belied her words. 

“I’m afraid you have convicted yourself,” he said. 
“If you had the courage of your convictions, you 
would go tramping and let the world know it.” 

“No,” she said; “it isn’t that; but during the last 
four or five years I’ve given auntie such a series of 
shocks, that she really must have* time to recover. 
First I went as a V.A.D., then I drove a Red Cross 
car in France and — well, now I must give way to 
her a little and become a hypocrite.” 

“No doubt that is where you got your ideas re- 
adjusted.” 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“Readjusted?” she repeated, looking at him in- 
terrogatingly. 

“In France,” he said. “We all had time to think 
out there.” 

She nodded understandingly. 

“I suppose it was being pitchforked clean out of 
our environment,” continued Beresford, “and mak- 
ing hay with class distinctions. I went out from 
the Foreign Office. For some weeks I was a pri- 
vate; it was a revelation.” 

“Yes,” she said dreamily, “I suppose we all felt 
it.” 

“You see out there the navvy for the first time in 
his life asked himself why he was a navvy.” 

“And the man from the Foreign Office why he 
was a man from the Foreign Office,” she suggested. 

“Yes,” he smiled, “and I doubt if either was 
successful in framing a satisfactory answer. 
Everything was one vast note of interrogation. A 
new riddle had been propounded to us.” 

“And you came back looking for an CEdipus.” 

“Yes,” he assented. “I on the open road, others 
in the workshop and office. The politician knows 
nothing about reconstruction, because he can view 
it only from the material standpoint.” 

She nodded her head brightly in agreement. “No 
one seems to understand. Everything’s so mixed 
up.” 

“I suppose it’s because until the war no one ever 
had a chance of finding out anything about any but 
his own class. Over there the labourer found the 


“THE TWO DRAGONS” 


39 


lord a sport, and the lord found the labourer a man 
just like himself. Oh, it’s going to be what a little 
cockney in my section would have called ‘an ’ades 
of a beano.’ ” 

Beresford shovelled some more coal on the fire. 
He seemed unable to get the chill out of his limbs. 

“And you,” she asked, “are you tramping for 
long?” 

“For ever I hope.” 

“For ever! That’s rather a long time, isn’t it?” 
she questioned. 

Beresford then told her something of his deter- 
mination to cut adrift from town life and its 
drudgery, and to see what the open road had to 
offer. He‘ told her of the protests of his relatives; 
of the general conviction that he had become men- 
tally unhinged, probably due to shell-shock. How 
every one had endeavoured to dissuade him from 
the folly upon which he was about to embark. He 
told her that in the disposal of his effects he felt 
rather like a schoolboy destroying his kit. 

“But your books?” she said. “What did you do 
with them?” 

“Ah! there you’ve put your finger on the weak 
spot,” laughed Beresford. “I had meant to give 
away a few and sell the rest; but somehow I couldn’t 
do it, so I had them done up in cases and stored 
away. I paid two years’ storage in advance.” 

She nodded approval and understanding. 

“You will see that I’m really a very weak char- 
acter after all.” 


40 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“And you will be walking month after month,” 
she said dreamily, “with no thought of the London 
Season, or Scotland, or wintering in Egypt. I wish 
I were you,” she added. 

“But surely you could break away if you wished 
it?” 

“It’s not so easy for a girl,” she replied, “and 
— and — oh, there are so many considerations. 
No,” she added with a sigh of resignation, “I must 
be content with occasional lapses, and I don’t really 
know that I’m a true vagabond,” she said a little re- 
gretfully, “I always have to carry a comfortable 
frock with me,” glancing down at herself, then 
looking up at him with a quizzical little smile. 
“That is in itself a sign of weakness, isn’t it?” 

“Only if you persist in labels,” he replied. “You 
are dreadfully conventional.” 

“I l” she cried in surprise. 

“Yes; you will insist on classifying every one ac- 
cording to appearances and accepted ideas.” 

“I don’t understand,” she said with a puzzled ex- 
pression. 

“Your idea of a vagabond is that of one who 
washes seldom, changes even seldomer, and spends 
the evening in hob-nailed boots by the inn fireside.” 

“I suppose you are right,” she said laughing. 
“It’s very difficult to get away from labels.” 

“Do you believe that Nature discourages eccen- 
tricity?” 

“I — I’m afraid I’ve never thought about it,” she 
said after a short pause. “Why?” 


“THE TWO DRAGONS” 41 

“Because that ridiculous phrase has been run- 
ning in my head all day,” he replied, shivering again 
slightly. “I wonder if the rain came as a rebuke 
to me for throwing over everything.” 

She nodded, signifying that she understood. 

“It’s rather queer,” he went on, “but I had never 
thought of possible drawbacks to bucolic freedom.” 

“You do now, though,” she suggested with a mis- 
chievous upward glance through her lashes that 
thrilled him. 

“I seem to believe in nothing else now,” he added. 
“I don’t possess your veneration for the rain, I pre- 
fer skylarks. Besides,” he went on, “I like to lie 
on my back in a field and forget.” 

“I know,” she said eagerly, “I’ve often wanted 
to live in a caravan, then you get everything. The 
night sounds must be so wonderful.” 

“You cannot be a vagabond if you carry your 
house with you,” he objected. 

“Just as much as those who use other people’s 
houses — the inns,” she retorted. “I suppose it’s 
really impossible to be a vagabond other than at 
heart.” 

“It’s impossible unless you can glory in dirt and 
personal uncleanliness.” 

“What a horrible idea. Surely there can be clean 
vagabonds.” 

“What opportunity has a tramp to wash? There 
are only the streams and the rivers, with the chance 
of getting run in for disturbing the trout or pollut- 
ing the water. Besides, without soap you cannot 


42 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


wash properly, and I’ve never heard of a vagabond 
who carried a cake of soap with him.” 

“I do,” she laughed, then after a few moments’ 
pause she added, “You reason and analyse too much 
for the open road. I being a woman accept all, and 
glory in my inconsistencies.” 

“And incidentally get as many baths, hot or cold, 
as you want.” 

She nodded. 

“No,” he continued, “the nomadic habit gets you 
dubbed a dangerous lunatic. I suppose I’m a dan- 
gerous lunatic, because I cannot find content in a 
dinner, a dance, or a crush, with a month’s holiday 
in the summer and, as my cousin would put it, work- 
ing like a fountain from ten till four.” 

“But does it really matter what we do, provided 
we can justify it to ourselves?” She looked up at 
him eagerly. 

“Would not the Philistines regard that as a dan- 
gerous philosophy?” 

“I don’t think I should ever want to run away 
from things,” she said dreamily; “that is monastic. 
It has always seemed to me a much greater achieve- 
ment to live your own life in the midst of uncon- 
genial or unsympathetic surroundings.” 

“You don’t know Aunt Caroline and the For- 
eign Office,” said Beresford grimly. 

“Oh! but,” said the girl, “my auntie’s just as con- 
ventional as can be. You see,” she continued seri- 
ously, “to be an idealist you must be unconscious 
of being one. Do you understand what I mean?” 


43 


“THE TWO DRAGONS” 

“You suggest that it may become a pose.” 

“Yes,” she said, nodding her head eagerly. 
“You might sacrifice the ideals to the idealism. It’s 
like religion that teaches you to find God in a 
church, whereas you should be able to : — 

Raise the stone and find me there, 

Cleave the wood and there am I. 

I so dislike cults and societies,” she added inconse- 
quently. 

“You make me feel as if I were being lectured.” 

“I’m so sorry,” she said hastily. “I didn’t 
mean ” 

“Please go on, I think I like it.” 

“But we are wandering from vagabondage,” she 
smiled. “Don’t you think that Thoreau and Jef- 
feries were vagabonds?” 

“Frankly I don’t,” he said with decision. “They 
were sentimentalists. The nearest to perfect vaga- 
bonds that I can recall among writers are Walt 
Whitman and George Borrow. Whitman is al- 
leged to have had all the characteristics of the vaga- 
bond. Have not controversies raged about his per- 
sonal cleanliness? As for Borrow, he could outwit 
a Jew or a gipsy.” 

“And cheat a girl’s love for him,” she suggested. 

“Love and vagabondage are contradictions.” 

“Contradictions!” she cried, opening her eyes 
wide. “I don’t agree with you,” she added with 
decision. 


44 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“A vagabond has only one mistress, Nature,” said 
Beresford quietly. 

“Then I’m not a vagabond,” she said. 

“The wood and the glade have only one music 
for the vagabond, the pipes of Pan,” he continued. 
“You would introduce the guitar.” 

“I should do nothing of the sort,” she cried in- 
dignantly. “As a matter of fact I used to play the 
concertina.” 

“The what?” 

“The concertina,” she repeated demurely with 
downcast eyes. 

Beresford stared at her in astonishment, not quite 
sure whether or no she were serious. 

“You see,” she said, “I couldn’t play anything 
else, and sometimes I wanted to remind myself of — 
of ” she broke off. 

“You could have sung?” he suggested. 

“Of course I could,” she said quietly, “but you’ve 
never heard me sing, and now I must be going to 

bed,” she said. “Perhaps ” she hesitated for 

a fraction of a second. “Perhaps I shall see you at 
breakfast.” 

“Thanks so much,” he said eagerly. “I shall be 
up early,” and in his mind he had come to the de- 
termination that his way should be her way if she 
would permit it. 

“Good night,” she said as she rose, and with a 
friendly smile walked towards the door. 

“Good night, au revoir,” he said meaningly, as 


“THE TWO DRAGONS” 45 

he opened the door and she passed out with a nod 
and a smile. 

“A concertina I” muttered Beresford, as he re- 
turned to his chair, “and what eyes.” 

He rang the bell, and when the waiter entered, 
ordered a double brandy. He felt chilled to the 
bone in spite of the fire. When the waiter returned 
he drank the brandy neat, shivering again violently. 

“Oh, hang it!” he muttered angrily. “I’ll go 
to bed.” 

Surely there never was so fantastic an ending to 
so fantastic a day. Wooing Pan with a concertina! 

“She’s mad,” he muttered, “mad as a spinning 
dervish.” 


tL 


% 


CHAPTER III 


LOST DAYS AND THE DOCTOR 

I T was ridiculous to endeavour to force a side- 
of-beef through so small a door; but was it a 
side-of-beef ? No, it was a bed. Why not 
take out a feather? Was it really a feather-bed? 
Why should a feather-bed wear a print-dress, a 
white apron, cuffs and a cap? Of course it was a 
woman. Beresford gazed fixedly at the figure in 
the doorway. Yes, it was unquestionably a woman; 
but why was she there, looking down critically at 
him lying in bed? Did she want him to get up? 
He closed his eyes wearily. His head felt very 
strange. 

Presently he opened his eyes again. Yes; it cer- 
tainly was a woman, and she was looking down at 
him. 

“Who are you? Where am I?” he murmured 
as he gazed vacantly about the room. “What has 
happened?’’ 

“Hush! you mustn’t talk,” was the response. 
When he looked again there was only a white 
door with yellow mouldings occupying the space 
where the woman in the print-dress had stood. She 
herself had vanished. It was so stupid of her to 
46 


LOST DAYS AND THE DOCTOR 


47 


run away when spoken to — so like a woman, too, 
to baulk a natural curiosity. What did it all mean? 
Why had he thought the woman a side-of-beef, then 
a feather-bed? What was she there for? Why 
did he appear to be floating about in space? Why 
did his whole body feel numbed, yet tingling? 

Suddenly he remembered the previous day’s ad- 
ventures, the Rain-Girl, the dinner, Pan, and the 
concertina. He must get up at once, or she might 
be gone. He must see her again. He struggled 
into a sitting posture, then fell back suddenly. He 
had no strength. What did it all mean? 

The door opened and the woman in the print- 
dress reappeared. 

“Where’s the Rain-Girl?” he demanded before 
she had time to close the door behind her, “and 
what’s the time?” 

“It’s eleven o’clock, and you must lie still, or you’ll 
become worse.” 

The woman’s voice was soft and soothing. For 
some minutes he pondered deeply over the impen- 
etrable mystery of her words. “Worse!” Had he 
been ill? It was absurd; yet why was he so weak? 
Eleven o’clock! Where has his shaving-water? 

“What is the date?” he suddenly demanded. 

“You must be quiet and not talk,” was the reply. 

“I must know the date,” he insisted. 

“It’s the eighth of May, and you’ve been ill and 
must rest. You’re very weak.” The nurse bent 
over him and fussed about with the pillows. 


48 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“The eighth of May! Where’s the Rain-Girl, 
Pan, the concertina?” he enquired faintly. 

“Hush! I shall get into trouble with the doctor 
if I allow you to talk,” she said. “You must sleep 
now, and we will talk when you are stronger.” 

“Nature discourages eccentricity, did you know 
that?” he muttered apathetically, as he closed his 
eyes. 

The nurse regarded him curiously. He did not 
appear to be delirious; yet what he was saying 

was Sick-nursing, however, produces its own- 

philosophy, and she settled herself down to read 
until the doctor should arrive. 

A lengthy period of silence was broken by Beres- 
ford. 

“Would you very much mind putting aside your 
book and answering a few questions?” he asked in 
a feeble voice. 

With an air of professional resignation, she low- 
ered the book on her lap. 

“You really mustn’t talk. If you do I shall have 
to go out of the room. Now you don’t want me to 
get into trouble, do you?” Her tone was that one 
would adopt to a child. 

Beresford lay still, trying to think; but his brain 
refused his will. The nurse had returned to her 
book and read steadily on, deliberately disregarding 
the two or three tentative efforts her patient made 
to attract her attention. His voice was very faint, 
and she pretended not to hear. The doctor had 
said he was not to talk, and she was too good a 


LOST DAYS AND THE DOCTOR 49 

nurse to allow imagination to modify her instruc- 
tions. 

When the doctor arrived an hour later, he found 
his patient restless and irritable. Seeing this at a 
glance, he sat down by the bedside, placed a cool, 
strong hand upon his head, and began to talk. The 
effect was instantaneous. Beresford lay quiet, and 
the drawn lines of irritation upon his face relaxed. 

“Had rather a bad time. Pneumonia brought 
on, or hastened, by that wetting you got. Delirious 
when they found you the next morning. Then we 
had to fight for you, and here after seven days 
you’ve come around. That was what you wanted to 
know, eh?” 

Beresford smiled his thanks. 

“And the Rain-Girl?” he questioned, “the girl 
who was here and played the concertina. Has she 
gone?” 

The doctor smiled. 

“I know, I saw her. Grey eyes and a manner 
half-demure, half-impertinent, wholly maddening. 
Yes, I met her on the road.” 

Beresford smiled appreciatively at the doctor’s 
description. 

“You’re the best man’s doctor I ever met,” he 
said. “Do women like you?” 

The doctor threw back his head and laughed 
loudly, causing the nurse, who had just left the room, 
to wonder if he were mad. 

“I’m supposed to be a woman’s doctor,” he re- 
plied. 


50 


THE RAIN-GIRL 

“Then you are in for a big success,” said Beres- 
ford faintly. “Who are you?” 

“Look here, you must let me talk. I’m James 
Tallis, practising at Frint as a first step to Wimpole 
or Harley Streets. The girl went away, so don’t 
worry about her. Such eyes ought to be gouged out 
by Act of Parliament. They were intolerable. Now 
I’m off. Don’t fidget, don’t worry, don’t ask the 
nurse questions, and I’ll try and tell you everything 
in time. I’ll run in again to-morrow, and we’ll have 
a longer talk. ’Bye.” 

Beresford stretched out his hand, which Tallis 
took, at the same time feeling his pulse. 

“Don’t give me drugs, just talk when you can,” 
he said weakly. “Of course you’re only a dream- 
doctor. If not you’re mad.” With that he lay 
back, tired with the effort of talking, and the doctor 
with another laugh left the room, whispered a few 
words to the nurse in the corridor, and whisked out 
of the hotel. 

Was there ever such a crazy, topsy-turvy world? 
Beresford’s mind was a chaos of absurdities. He 
had flown from the commonplace, and landed in 
a veritable Gehenna of interest. Within thirty hours 
of setting out, a modern Don Quixote, plus a tem- 
perament, he had encountered more incidents, 
pleasant and unpleasant, than most men have any 
right to expect in a decade. It was absurd, ridicu- 
lous, insane to overload a man’s stomach with 
adventure in this way. It was like giving beef-steak 
pudding to some poor devil with gastritis. Perhaps 


LOST DAYS AND THE DOCTOR 


51 


after all he would be forced to return to London in 
search of quiet. The country was evidently packed 
with adventures too monstrously anti-climatic for 
him. And he fell asleep as a protest against the 
obvious mismanagement of his affairs by fate. 

On the morrow the doctor came again, chatted 
for a quarter of an hour, then, like a breeze on a 
hot summer’s day, departed. The nurse was nega- 
tive: she was uncongenial, uncompanionable, un- 
everything. 

On the second day the proprietor came to see the 
patient. He was a little man with a round figure 
and a round smile. He entered the room as if it 
had been a death-chamber, approached the bed on 
tip-toe, and smiled nervously. As a landlord he was 
all that could be desired. He would meet his guests 
at the door and welcome them as a good host should. 
He would enquire after their comfort, and in the 
mornings ask if they had slept well. He would 
gossip with them cheerfully if they showed them- 
selves inclined for talk, and he personally superin- 
tended the kitchen, having once been a chef. In 
short, he strove to combine all that was most attrac- 
tive in modern comfort with the best traditions of 
the old coaching days. 

In a sick-room, however, the landlord of “The 
Two Dragons” was out of place. Rich in tact and 
amiability, he was bankrupt in all else. He spoke in 
a hushed whisper, sat on the extreme edge of his 
chair, and coughed nervously from time to time, 
raising the tips of his fingers to his lips. He was 


52 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


smiling, he was bland; but Beresford was thankful 
when he rose to go, promising to come in on the 
morrow. 

The Rain-Girl continued to monopolise Beres- 
ford’s thoughts. What had become of her? Where 
was she now? Should he ever see her again? To 
all these questions there was no answer, at least no 
answer that satisfied him. 

During those dreary days of convalescence he 
chafed under the “dire compulsion of infertile days.” 
Outside were the trees, the birds, the sunlight, with 
an occasional sudden rush of rain, followed by the 
maddening scent of moist earth. He fumed and 
fretted at the restraint put upon him, not only by 
the doctor; but by his own physical weakness. He 
longed for the open road once more. 

The monotony of it all, of being a hotel-invalid; 
it was intolerable. The events of the day, what 
were they? Breakfast, the arrival of the morning 
paper, a visit of ceremony from the landlord, lunch, 
the doctor and tea — and, finally, dinner. Sometimes 
the doctor would spend an hour with him in the 
evening. 

The nurse was an infliction. In herself she was 
sufficient to discourage any one from falling ill. She 
had neither conversation nor ideas, she whistled as 
she moved about the room, or else she talked inces- 
santly, now that her patient was convalescent. 
Sometimes she appeared to talk and whistle at the 
same time, so swift were the alternations. 

The landlord — a man rich in that which made a 


LOST DAYS AND THE DOCTOR 58 

good landlord but in nothing else — exhausted his 
ideas within the space of five minutes. With great 
regularity he entered the sick-room each morning 
at eleven, at eleven-five he would take his departure, 
more genial, more amiable, and more obviously 
good-hearted than ever. The doctor was the most 
welcome visitor of all; but he was a busy man. 

“If the microbes of this neighbourhood were only 
sociable,” he would say, “I might spend more time 
with you. As it is they’re wanderers to a germ, and 
get as far as possible from each other before de- 
scending upon my patients. The result is that I am 
kept rushing from place to place with phial and 
lancet, sedative and purge, all because of the nomadic 
habits of these precious bacilli.” 

These unprofessional visits from the doctor 
Beresford looked forward to as intellectual oases 
in the desert of his own thoughts. He had endeav- 
oured to emulate Xavier Le Maistre; but he had to 
confess to himself that Voyages Autour de ma 
Chambre were impossible to him, so there remained 
only the doctor. 

One evening towards the end of the month they 
sat chatting beside the bedroom fire, Beresford 
wrapped in a heavy dressing-gown borrowed from 
the landlord. They had been talking of the war 
and the social upheaval that was following it. 

“It was all so strange coming back here,” said 
Beresford, “a lot of the fellows remarked upon it. 
Somehow or other we didn’t seem to belong — we 
didn’t seem to fit in, you know. When I came back 


54 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


on leave I noticed it particularly. I would go to a 
restaurant, hear the talk and laughter, listen to the 
music; yet twenty-four hours previously I — oh! it 
was all wrong, and is wrong, and will continue to be 
wrong,” he broke off irritably. 

U I know,” said Tallis quietly. 

“You were out there?” queried Beresford. 

“For more than a couple of years, one part of 
the time at an advanced dressing-station.” 

“So you know,” said Beresford with interest. 

Tallis nodded, puffing methodically at his pipe. 

“The strange thing is that some knew what was 
the matter with them, others were just like animals 
who were ill and couldn’t understand it. You’ve 
seen a dog look up at you as if enquiring why it 
can’t enjoy things as it used to?” 

Tallis nodded again. 

“Well, that’s what some of the men reminded me 
of,” continued Beresford, “especially those who had 
come back from leave. God!” he exclaimed, “it was 
an unequal distribution of the world’s responsibil- 
ities.” 

For some time they smoked in silence. Presently 
the doctor bent towards the grate and knocked the 
ashes out of his pipe. 

“Talking of responsibilities,” he said casually, 
“reminds me of my own. What’s the next move 
after convalescence?” 

“The next move?” 

“You’d better try Folkestone.” 


LOST DAYS AND THE DOCTOR 55 

“Folkestone!” cried Beresford, “I’ll be damned 
if I do. I’d sooner go to — to ” 

“Well, it’ll probably be a choice between the two. 
I’d try Folkestone first, however, if I were you,” 
he added drily. “It’ll brace you up.” 

“But it’s going back again ” He paused and 

regarded the doctor comically. “You see,” he con- 
tinued, “I’ve cut adrift from all that sort of thing. 
I escaped from London, and now you want to send 
me to a seaside-town — abomination of abomina- 
tions. I won’t go. I’ll see the whole idiotic Faculty 
damned first. I’ve been free, and I won’t go back 
to the collar. I know you think I’m a fool,” he 
concluded moodily. 

“No, merely an idealist,” said Tallis, puffing im- 
perturbably at his pipe. 

“Where’s the difference?” growled Beresford, 
petulantly. 

“There is none,” was the quiet reply. “What’ll 
happen when your money’s exhausted?” was the 
next question. Beresford had already told Tallis 
of what had led up to his adventure. “I take it that 
your means, like other things, have their limitations. 
What’ll you do when the money’s gone?” 

“Oh, anything, everything.. If fate sends me 
pneumonia on the first day of my adventure, on the 
last she’ll probably send me ” 

“A great desire for life,” interrupted the doctor 
calmly. 

Beresford sat up suddenly. “Good Lord!” he 
6urst out. “How horrible! What a fiendish idea.” 


56 


TH3 RAIN-GIRL 


“Nature has an odd way of paying off old scores. 
She’s a mistress of irony.” 

“And you appear to be a master of a peculiarly 
devilish kind of abominable suggestion,” said Beres- 
ford irritably. “I thought you a dream-doctor at 
first — you’re a nightmare-doctor! Do you think 
that Nature is a coquette, who appears to discourage 
a man in order to strengthen his ardour?” 

After some hesitation the doctor replied: 

“No: she’s logical and even-tempered. There’s 
nothing wayward about her: she represents abstract 
justice. Treat her well and she’ll treat you well; 
abuse her and she’s implacable. My professional 
experience tells me that if she ever deviates from the 
strict path of justice, it’s on the side of clemency.” 

“Damn your professional experience,” snapped 
Beresford, then he laughed. 

“But what are you going to do?” persisted Tallis. 

“You’re as bad as Aunt Caroline. She always 
wants to plan a destiny as if it were a dinner.” 

“But that does not answer my question.” 

“It doesn’t,” agreed Beresford, “because there’s 
no answer. When the time comes I shall decide.” 

They smoked on in silence, and Tallis did not 
again refer to the subject. The conversation, how- 
ever, remained in Beresford’s mind for several days. 
The conspiracy against him seemed widespread. 
Why had there always been this curious strain in 
him, a sort of unrest, an undefined expectancy? Was 
he in reality mad? Was he, indeed, pursuing a 
shadow? In any case he would prove it for himself. 


LOST DAYS AND THE DOCTOR 57 

He was not to be deterred by this ridiculous, level- 
headed sawbones with his sententious babble about 
Nature, justice and clemency. It was true he had 
been unlucky enough to get pneumonia. Other men 
had done the same without the circumstance being 
contorted into an absurd theory that the whole 
forces of the universe were being directed against 
them. 

Then there was the Rain-Girl. Why had he been 
so detestably unlucky as to fall ill on the night of 
meeting her? She was a unique creature, and those 
eyes ! She had charm too, there was something 
Pagan about her, and her wonderful gurgling laugh; 
but she had said he was all wrong, and she certainly 
had nothing in common with Aunt Caroline. 

Each day his determination to see the girl grew 
stronger. She had cast a spell over him. She had 
fascinated him. She cared for the things that he 
cared for. He must see her again. He would see 
her again — but how? At this juncture he generally 
lay back in his chair, or bed, and gave up the prob- 
lem until he were stronger and better able to grapple 
with it. 

Once there had come over him an unreasoning 
anger at her heartlessness. Knowing that a fellow- 
guest at the hotel was ill, even if only with a chill, 
a strictly humanitarian woman would have been 
touched by pity; but were women humanitarian? 
Had she heard he was ill? In a novel she would 
have stayed, nursed him back to health, and he 
would have married her. 


58 


TH^ RAIN-GIRL 

This line of reasoning invariably ended in his 
laughing at his own folly in expecting an acquaint- 
ance to act as if she were an intimate friend, and 
wanting real life to approach the romantic standard 
of the novelist. That had been the trouble all along. 
He had asked too much of life. 

She was so wonderful, that Rain-Girl. She was a 
tramp; yet carried with her a soft, feminine frock 
and had once played the concertina with which to 
woo the great god Pan ! How astonished Olympus 
must have been at the sight. Why did he want to 
see her again? Why did life seem somehow to 
revolve round her? Why, above all, oh! why, a 
thousand times why, did her face keep presenting 
itself to his waking vision? In dreams she was par- 
amount, that was understandable, but — 

‘‘When a man has a few hundred pounds between 
himself and the Great Adventure, it’s better for him 
not to think about a girl.” 

“On the contrary, my dear fellow, it’s just the 
moment when he should begin to think seriously 
about her.” 

Beresford had unconsciously uttered his thoughts 
aloud, as he stood at the window, watching the sun 
through the pine-wood opposite, and Tallis entering 
unheard, had answered him. 

“Now it’s you who are the idealist,” smiled 
Beresford. 

“If a doctor has an eye for anything but a 
microbe, he’ll recognise that love is a great healer. 


LOST DAYS AND THE DOCTOR 59 

Don’t look for health in a phial or a retort; but in 
an affinity.” 

“Drewitt says that an affinity is like a hair-shirt; 
it enables you to realise the soul through the medium 
of the senses.” 

“That’s a very poor epigram. Some day you’ll 
discover it for yourself.” Tallis drew his pipe from 
his pocket and proceeded to fill it from Beresford’s 
pouch that lay on the table. 

“I suppose,” remarked Beresford presently, “that 
there’s nothing, no law, convention or unrepealed 
statute in the Defense of the Realm Act by which 
you can insist on my going to Folkestone.” 

Tallis shook his head and proceeded to light his 
pipe. 

“Then I shall go to London,” announced Beres- 
ford with decision. 

Tallis puffed vigorously at his pipe; but made no 
comment. 

“I said I shall go to London,” repeated Beres- 
ford. 

“You did.” 

“Then why the devil can’t you say something 
about it?” 

“There’s nothing to be said,” was the smiling 
retort. “May I ask why you have come to this 
decision?” 

“I’m sick of the country. It’s — it’s so infernally 
monotonous,” he added somewhat lamely. 

Tallis nodded his head comprehendingly. 

“Why on earth can’t you say something?” snapped 


62 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


as that colonial Tommy, who risked his own life, and 
jolly nearly lost it too, merely that I might be 
involved in the further trouble and expense of 
living.’ * 



CHAPTER IV 


THE CALL OF THE RAIN-GIRL 

T O-MORROW,’’ remarked Beresford, as he 
lay back in a hammock-chair upon the 
inn lawn, “I set out for the haunts of 

men.” 

Tallis, who had called in after dinner for a smoke, 
did not reply immediately; but for fully a minute 
sat pulling meditatively at his pipe. 

“Any criticisms?” enauired Beresford with a 
smile. 

“That depends on how you propose to go,*’ was 
the reply. 

“Oh, slow, say ten miles a day.” 

“That’s helpful,” said Tallis drily. 

“Helpful? What the deuce do you mean?” 

“I shall know where to have the ambulance.” 

For a moment Beresford did not reply, then he 
laughed. 

“You certainly are the most extraordinary fellow 
I ever met,” he said. “So you think I can’t walk 
ten miles?” 

“You’ll collapse before you reach the third mile,” 
Tallis replied, with the air of a man making a simple 
statement of fact. 


63 


64 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“What!” cried Beresford, sitting up straight in 
his surprise. “Am I as bad as that?” 

“You’re just weak and want building up,” was 
the reply. 

For some time the two men continued to smoke 
in silence. 

“I suppose the war cheapens human life,” said 
Beresford irrelevantly. 

Tallis looked across at him; but made no com- 
ment. 

“I noticed out there,” continued Beresford, “that 
men new to the game seemed so different from those 
who had been at it a year or two.” 

“In what way?” 

“They seemed more vital. They were interested, 
curious. They asked all sorts of what seemed to 
us old hands stupid questions.” He paused, and 
Tallis nodded his head comprehendingly. 

“Then they would gradually become absorbed in 
the atmosphere of fatalism that seemed to grip us 
all. It was very strange,” he added, half to himself. 

“What about the cheapening of life?” 

“It’s a bit difficult to express,” said Beresford 
slowly, “but somehow or other I seem to feel that 
the old idea of the sacredness of human life has gone 
for ever as far as I am concerned.” Again he paused 
and for some seconds smoked in silence, then he 
continued whimsically, “Take an exaggerated case. 
Before the war if a man had ” 

“Stolen from you the girl with the eyes, shall we 
say,” suggested Tallis gravely. 


THE CALL OF THE RAIN-GIRL 


65 


“Well, that’ll do,” he laughed, “I should probably 
have wanted to knock him down; now I should kill 
him. Why?” 

“Merely a psychological readjustment of your 
ideas of crime and punishment,” said Tallis. 

“No, that’s not it,” said Beresford musingly. “It 
goes deeper than that. Before the war, killing was 
an unthinkable crime, now it’s little more than kick- 
ing a man downstairs. In other words this genera- 
tion has pricked the bubble of the sacredness of 
human life.” 

“I suppose that’s it,” said Tallis, as if reluctant 
to admit it. “But ” 

“That doesn’t settle my little hash, you mean?” 
Beresford interrupted. 

“Your little hash will settle itself, my son,” replied 
Tallis with a smile, “unless you’re a bit more rea- 
sonable,” he added. 

“I was coming to that. I seem to have lost the 
will to live. It’s odd,” Beresford continued 
musingly, “but when things worry or irritate me, 
I seem instinctively to fall back on the ” 

“Hari-kari idea?” suggested Tallis. 

“That’s it,” he nodded. “The way out. Why 
is it?” 

“Liver.” 

“Oh, rot! If it’s liver, why didn’t I notice it 
before the war?” 

“Nerves and liver do make cowards of us all,” 
said Tallis sententiously. “Anyhow, don’t hurry 
off from here.” 


66 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“Very well, I’ll put off the start until Monday. 
Let’s see, that’ll be June 9th.” 

Tallis nodded approval. 

“You and my host and the nurse and the whole 
blessed boiling of you have assumed a pretty serious 
responsibility,” continued Beresford. “You’ve 
dragged me back resisting into this world of vain 
endeavour, and I’m not sure that you haven’t done 
an extremely injudicious thing; but that’s your affair, 
not mine.” 

“What about the girl?” enquired Tallis. 

“I ought to be annoyed with you,” continued 
Beresford, ignoring the question, “as a man who 
has been forced to eat a meal he didn’t want and 
is then asked to pay for it. You’ve literally hauled 
me back to earth by the heels; but as I say, that’s 
your affair, not mine.” 

“Well,” said Tallis as he rose and pocketed his 
pipe, “life always was a funny sort of muddle; but 
Kaiser Bill has added to its difficulties. I’m not at 
all sure that we doctors don’t do more harm in 
saving people than in ” 

“Killing them,” suggested Beresford. 

“Letting them die as they deserve,” concluded 
Tallis quietly. “So long,” and he strolled across the 
lawn into “The Two Dragons,” leaving his patient 
to his thoughts. 

Beresford found himself looking forward to the 
day of his emancipation with all the eagerness of a 
schoolboy anticipating the summer holidays. The 
past few weeks had resulted in an entire readjust- 


THE CALL OF THE RAIN-GIRL 


67 


ment of his ideas. The open road no longer seemed 
to attract him. Hitherto it had appeared the only 
thing that mattered; now into all his plans and pro- 
jects the Rain-Girl seemed to precipitate herself. 

Try as he might, he found it impossible to develop 
a scheme for the future from which she was ex- 
cluded. A few weeks previously his one idea in life 
had been to get away from the London that jarred 
so upon his nerves. He could not breathe in its 
heavy, smoky atmosphere, he had told himself, and 
he had longed for the quiet of the countryside, where 
he could think and, mentally, put his house in order. 
Now everything was changed. Why? It seemed 
to have become a world of “Whys.” 

Convalescence to him could not mean the going 
away to some quiet spot where his health might be 
completely restored. It meant a definite and active 
campaign in search of this girl; yet he had seen her 
only twice. It was all so strange, so bewildering. 
Time after time he asked himself what she had 
thought of his conduct in not keeping the implied 
appointment for breakfast. Had she decided that 
he had forgotten, or overslept himself? He had 
learned that it was nearly eleven on that unfortunate 
second of May before his condition was discovered 
by the chambermaid. 

Of course it did not matter to the Rain-Girl, he 
told himself. By now, in all probability, she had 
forgotten his very existence; but for himself, well, 
find her he would, even if he had to search London 
as the girl in history had done for her lover. He 


66 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“Very well, I’ll put off the start until Monday. 
Let’s see, that’ll be June 9th.” 

Tallis nodded approval. 

“You and my host and the nurse and the whole 
blessed boiling of you have assumed a pretty serious 
responsibility,” continued Beresford. “You’ve 
dragged me back resisting into this world of vain 
endeavour, and I’m not sure that you haven’t done 
an extremely injudicious thing; but that’s your affair, 
not mine.” 

“What about the girl?” enquired Tallis. 

“I ought to be annoyed with you,” continued 
Beresford, ignoring the question, “as a man who 
has been forced to eat a meal he didn’t want and 
is then asked to pay for it. You’ve literally hauled 
me back to earth by the heels; but as I say, that’s 
your affair, not mine.” 

“Well,” said Tallis as he rose and pocketed his 
pipe, “life always was a funny sort of muddle; but 
Kaiser Bill has added to its difficulties. I’m not at 
all sure that we doctors don’t do more harm in 
saving people than in ” 

“Killing them,” suggested Beresford. 

“Letting them die as they deserve,” concluded 
Tallis quietly. “So long,” and he strolled across the 
lawn into “The Two Dragons,” leaving his patient 
to his thoughts. 

Beresford found himself looking forward to the 
day of his emancipation with all the eagerness of a 
schoolboy anticipating the summer holidays. The 
past few weeks had resulted in an entire readjust- 


THE CALL OF THE RAIN-GIRL 


67 


ment of his ideas. The open road no longer seemed 
to attract him. Hitherto it had appeared the only 
thing that mattered; now into all his plans and pro- 
jects the Rain-Girl seemed to precipitate herself. 

Try as he might, he found it impossible to develop 
a scheme for the future from which she was ex- 
cluded. A few weeks previously his one idea in life 
had been to get away from the London that jarred 
so upon his nerves. He could not breathe in its 
heavy, smoky atmosphere, he had told himself, and 
he had longed for the quiet of the countryside, where 
he could think and, mentally, put his house in order. 
Now everything was changed. Why? It seemed 
to have become a world of “Whys.” 

Convalescence to him could not mean the going 
away to some quiet spot where his health might be 
completely restored. It meant a definite and active 
campaign in search of this girl; yet he had seen her 
only twice. It was all so strange, so bewildering. 
Time after time he asked himself what she had 
thought of his conduct in not keeping the implied 
appointment for breakfast. Had she decided that 
he had forgotten, or overslept himself? He had 
learned that it was nearly eleven on that unfortunate 
second of May before his condition was discovered 
by the chambermaid. 

Of course it did not matter to the Rain-Girl, he 
told himself. By now, in all probability, she had 
forgotten his very existence; but for himself, well, 
find her he would, even if he had to search London 
as the girl in history had done for her lover. He 


68 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


could not remember who it was; thinking fatigued 
him excessively these days. Upon one thing he con- 
gratulated himself, he possessed a clue in the name 
of the hotel at which she was to stay. 

When at last the day of his emancipation came, 
Beresford found himself as excited as a child upon 
the morning of a school-treat. Soon after dawn 
he was gazing out of the window to assure himself 
that the weather was not about to play him another 
scurvy trick, such as it had done on the first day of 
his adventure. With a sigh of content he saw that 
the sky over the pinewoods opposite was blue-grey 
and cloudless. He returned to bed thinking, not of 
the weather, but of the Rain-Girl. 

Soon after breakfast Tallis called to bid him 
good-bye. 

“Now, young fellow,” he said, “no tricks. Re- 
member you are weak, and won’t be able to stand 
much fatigue. If you set out to w 7 alk ten miles a 
day, or anything like it, your little worries and 
problems will settle themselves; but don’t do it. 
I’m frightfully busy, and inquests are the devil.” 

“You’ve got a cheerful way of putting things,” 
said Beresford drily. 

“I’ve discovered that it’s no use putting things to 
you in the normal way,” replied Tallis with a smile. 
“To say that you are pig-headed is unfair to the 
porker. Remember,” he added, warningly, “three 
miles at the outside to-day; I doubt if you’ll want 
to do more than two.” 

“Oh, rot!” cried Beresford. “Look here, I’ll give 


THE CALL OF THE RAIN-GIRL 


69 


you two pounds for every half-mile I do under three, 
and you give me one pound for every mile I do 
over.” 

“No,” said Tallis, shaking his head, “that would 
be compounding a suicide. Your will might carry 
you on for four miles; but you’d finish the journey 
on a gate.” 

“You’re as gloomy as a panel-doctor during an 
epidemic,” laughed Beresford. “That’s the worst 
of you medicos, you do everything by rule of thumb. 
You say certain things have happened and conse- 
quently certain other things must grow out of them 
as a natural sequence. You make no allowance for 
the personal equation.” 

“I’ve made a great deal of allowance for your 
personal equation, my son,” replied Tallis grimly, 
“otherwise I should long ago have certified you 
insane.” 

“Why, I’m a perfect epic of sanity compared with 
you,” protested Beresford. “Look how you used 
to scandalise the nurse by the way you talked to me 
when, according to all the rules of the game, I ought 
to have been left quiet.” 

“And which soothed you the most,” enquired 
Tallis quietly, “being left alone to your thoughts, 
or told what you wanted to know?” 

“Oh, it answered all right, of course.” 

Tallis shrugged his shoulders. 

“It’s too bad,” laughed Beresford, “here have 
you dragged me back to life again, and now I’m 
bullying you. It’s been ripping having you about. 


70 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


God knows what I should have done if you hadn’t 
been here,” he added as he rose and stretched him- 
self. 

“Well, don’t break down again,” said Tallis, “and 
above all things go slow. Let me hear how you 
get on and — if you find her.” 

“Right-o,” he gripped the doctor’s hand, “and 
now, like Dick Whittington, I’m off to discover 
London town.” 

He shook hands with the proprietor, and thanked 
him for all he had done and, with the good wishes 
of the whole staff, turned his head northwards in 
the direction of London, conscious that before him 
lay an even greater adventure than the one he had 
sought on that unforgettable first of May. 

It seemed as if Nature, conscious of having failed 
him once, was now endeavouring to make amends 
for her lapse. Birds were fluting and calling from 
every branch and hedge, as if it were the first day 
of Spring. The trees, vivid in the morning sunlight, 
swayed and rustled gently in the breeze; the air, 
soft as a maiden’s kiss, was heavily perfumed. It 
was a day for love and lingering. 

As he walked slowly along the high-road drinking 
in the beauty of the morning, Beresford recalled 
with a smile Tallis’ warning. Ten miles would be a 
trifle on a day such as this, he decided. Still he 
would take no undue risks and walk slowly, loiter 
in fact. 

He had lost thirty-eight days. It was now June 
9th. It was strange how a man’s ideas could change. 


THE CALL OF THE RAIN-GIRL 


71 


A month ago there had been nothing he desired 
beyond the open road; now his face was turned 
London-wards. Why? Again that inevitable 
“Why.” 

The country-side was evidently no place for a man 
who would seek quiet and a day’s delight. It 
seemed capable of providing a veritable orgy of 
incident. George Borrow was right after all. 

After half an hour’s sauntering, he was glad to 
rest on a wayside stone-heap. There was plenty of 
time, he told himself, and no need to hurry. Again, 
it was pleasant sitting by the road-side, listening to 
the birds and watching the life of the hedges. He 
had become conscious of a strange lassitude, and a 
still stranger inclination on the part of his legs to 
double up beneath him. His head, too, seemed to 
be behaving quite unreasonably. There were curious 
buzzings in his ears, and every now and then a 
momentary giddiness assailed him. What if Tallis 
should prove right after all, that he really was 
totally unfit for more than a mile or two? 

As if to disprove such a suggestion he rose and 
continued his way, telling himself that as he became 
more accustomed to the exercise, these little mani- 
festations of reluctance on the part of his legs and 
head would disappear. 

At the end of three hours he had covered about 
two miles. The rests had been more frequent, and 
the distances covered between them shorter. It now 
became too obvious for argument or doubt that he 
was in no fit state for the high-road. In a way he 


72 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


was not sorry, although it was undignified to have 
to confess himself beaten. Still London was calling 
as she had never called to him before, not even in 
those nightmare-days in flooded trenches during 
1914. After all perhaps it would be wiser to take 
train and run no risks. Tallis had been very definite 
about the unwisdom of over-exertion. 

The sight of an approaching cart decided him. 
As it drew almost level Beresford hailed the driver, 
a little, weather-beaten old man with ragged whis- 
kers and kindly blue eyes, asking if he would give 
him a lift. 

The man pulled up and invited him to jump in, 
explaining that he was bound for Leatherhead. 

As he climbed into the cart, Beresford was con- 
scious that it meant surrender; but he was quite 
content. 

Thus it happened that at half-past three on the 
afternoon of the day he had set out from “The Two 
Dragons,” Beresford found himself at Waterloo 
Station, with no luggage other than his rucksack and 
a walking-stick, wondering where he should spend 
the night. He had taken the precaution of booking 
a room at the Ritz-Carlton; but he was not due 
there until the following Monday. In any case he 
could not very well turn up without luggage and in 
his present kit. 

Having sent a telegram to Tallis telling him of 
the accuracy of his lugubrious prophesies, Beresford 
hailed a taxi and drove to the Dickens Hotel in 
Bloomsbury, where he was successful in obtaining a 


THE CALL OF THE RAIN-GIRL 73 

room, owing to the sudden departure of a guest 
called away to the death-bedside of a relative. 

That night he slept the sleep of the physically 
exhausted. 

The morrow and the remainder of the week he 
devoted to shopping. He found that an hour in the 
morning, with another hour in the afternoon, after 
he had been fortified by lunch, was as much as he 
could stand. His tailor was frankly pleased to see 
him, and tactfully dissimulated the surprise he felt. 
In the matter of expedition he achieved the impos- 
sible. By the end of the week Beresford found him- 
self completely equipped with all that was necessary 
to enable him to proceed upon his great search. 

On the Monday morning when he drove from the 
Dickens Hotel to the Ritz-Carlton, he was conscious 
of two things, a thrill of anticipation and the blatant 
newness of his luggage. 


CHAPTER V 


THE SEARCH BEGINS 

A S he stood hesitating at the entrance to the 
dining-room of the Ritz-Carlton, there 
flashed across Beresford’ s mind the memory 
of the rain-soddened assembly-trench packed with 
men in whose hearts there was a great curiosity, and 
in whose eyes there was something of fear. All were 
striving to disguise from each other their real feel- 
ings, and were determined to go over the top as if 
accustomed to it from childhood. 

Beresford recalled his own sensations, the feeling 
of emptiness at the pit of his stomach, the rather 
unreasonable behaviour of his knees, and an almost 
childish desire to strike matches in order to light a 
cigarette that was already burning cheerfully. Elim- 
inating the cigarette episode, he experienced all the 
other sensations during the momentary pause on the 
threshold of the dining-room of the Ritz-Carlton. 
Then he took the plunge and entered. The maitre 
d’hotel conducted him to his table and, with a feeling 
of genuine relief and thankfulness, Beresford sank 
into the chair held back for him, and proceeded to 
study the menu as if his life depended upon it. 

74 


THE SEARCH BEGINS 


75 


Now that he was actually on the eve of what he 
had looked forward to for the last six weeks, he felt 
an unaccountable nervousness and hesitation. For 
some reason he could not understand, he kept his 
eyes straight in front of him instead of singling out 
the Rain-Girl from the other guests. She was there, 
he knew, because she had told him that her stay 
would last the Season. What was he to say to her? 
Would she recognize him and, if so, would she 
acknowledge him? 

He was so absorbed in his own thoughts as to be 
unconscious of the arrival of the hors d’ oeuvres. A 
discreet cough on the part of the waiter, bending 
solicitously towards him, brought back his wander- 
ing attention to the business of the moment. 

As he helped himself he swiftly envisaged the 
guests on his left. She was not there. For some 
minutes his gaze did not wander from that part of 
the room. Now that he was on the eve of finding 
her, he seemed almost afraid to do so. He wanted 
to retain as long as possible the delicious feeling of 
suspense. It was only by a supreme effort of will 
that he controlled himself sufficiently to scrutinise 
his fellow-guests, first quickly, then slowly and with 
method. 

By the time he was half through the fish, it was 
becoming increasingly clear to him that the Rain- 
Girl was not in the dining-room. In spite of the 
growing conviction that she was not there, he now 
became almost feverish in his anxiety to discover 
her beneath some disguising hat. 


76 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


When at length he was satisfied that not even the 
most fantastical effort of the modiste was capable 
of concealing the head of the Rain-Girl, Beresford 
was conscious of a feeling of intense disappointment, 
almost of despair. What if she had gone away? 
She might be ill, or possibly her aunt was ill and 
they had been forced to go abroad. What a fool he 
had been to build so confidently on that orne hint, the 
name of the hotel at which she was to stay. 

Suddenly his eyes fell on the untasted glass of 
burgundy before him and, remembering Tallis’ ad- 
vice, he drank it at a draught. 

Of course she was lunching somewhere with 
friends. He would in all probability see her at 
dinner. People could not be expected to take all their 
meals in their hotels, as if they were staying en pen- 
sion at Margate or Southend. Really he was becom- 
ing a little suburban, not to say provincial, in his 
ideas. 

As the meal progressed the cloud of depression 
lightened, and by the time that he had finished the 
second glass of burgundy, he had explained to his 
entire satisfaction the absence of the Rain-Girl from 
lunch. 

After the meal, he took a short walk around Bond 
Street, Regent Street and Piccadilly. He then spent 
half an hour in the Park, placing himself behind a 
tree lest he should be recognised by some of his 
acquaintance, who would carry the news of his return 
to his family. What a splendid thing it must be 
not to have a family. Then he walked slowly up 


THE SEARCH BEGINS 


77 

Piccadilly, determined to take tea at the Ritz-Carl- 
ton, in fact he had already decided never to be 
absent from any meal. 

In the lounge he went through the same process 
as at lunch, striving to penetrate the creations and 
camouflages of Paquin and Louise. 

No, she was not there. He would wait until 
dinner-time when, unmodified by millinery, Nature 
might more easily be studied. 

After tea he strolled once more down to the Park, 
loitering about by the Stanhope Gate until nearly 
seven o’clock. As he drove back to the hotel, he 
was conscious of a great weariness both physical and 
mental. 

Dressing leisurely, it was half-past eight before he 
entered the dining-room, feeling in a modified form 
the same thrill he had experienced at lunch-time. On 
this occasion he immediately proceeded to investi- 
gate his fellow guests; but although he scanned the 
women at every table in the room, there was no one 
he could even for a moment mistake for the Rain- 
Girl. 

This time burgundy, although the same as he had 
drunk at lunch, failed to dissipate the cloud of de- 
pression that descended upon him. Something had 
obviously happened. She was not staying at the 
Ritz Carlton. In all probability he would never see 
her again. No doubt the aunt, of whom she had 
spoken, had developed nerves. Damn aunts ! What 
possible use were aunts in the economy of things? 
There was his own Aunt Caroline, for instance. She 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


¥8 

had been about as useful to him as a mastodon har- 
nessed to a brougham. Possibly she had gone for 
another tramp, the Rain-Girl, not Aunt Caroline. 

Possibly he sat up suddenly at the thought. 

She might be ill. He had got pneumonia, perhaps 
she had got it on the following day. Perhaps the 
symptoms took longer to manifest themselves in 
women than in men. How was he to find out? First, 
how was he to find out whether she were in the 
hotel or not? He could not very well go to the 
manager, or one of the clerks, give a description of 
her, and ask if she were staying there. They would 
in all probability look upon him with suspicion as 
an undesirable. It was all very tantalising and tor- 
menting. 

As the meal progressed, Beresford began to find 
a hundred reasons why the Rain-Girl had not been 
present at lunch, tea or dinner. She might be spend- 
ing the day on the river, or motoring. Possibly she 
had been away for the week-end, and had not re- 
turned in time to come down to dinner. After all 
breakfast would prove whether or no she were in 
the hotel. People did not generally go out to break- 
fast, unless they happened to be friends of the Prime 
Minister. He would wait until breakfast. 

Yes, that burgundy was undoubtedly a good, 
sound wine, the second half-bottle seemed to be 
even better than the first. 

That night Beresford slept soundly. In his 
dreams he covered what appeared to him to be the 
whole range of sub-conscious absurdity. Everything 


THE SEARCH BEGINS 


79 


he saw or encountered seemed to turn into the Rain- 
Girl, or from the Rain-Girl into something else. 
The camel from “Chu Chin Chow/’ which he had 
encountered in the streets, suddenly dissolved into 
the Rain-Girl. The next thing he knew was that 
he was endeavouring to ride the camel through the 
revolving doors of the Ritz-Carlton, with the hall- 
porter striving to bar the way, and a policeman try- 
ing to pull it out by the tail. Then in the Park it 
was the Rain-Girl who came up and asked for his 
penny and, instead of a ticket, she gave him a cup 
of coffee. Again, he was riding on an omnibus when 
he saw the Rain-Girl in a taxi beside him. Drop- 
ping over the side of the ’bus, he threw his arms 
round her, only to find that it was his Aunt Caroline, 
who was telling him not to be a fool. 

Beresford awakened with a dazed feeling, con- 
scious that something had happened, something 
disappointing; but unable to determine just what it 
was. Suddenly he remembered the incidents of the 
previous day, and his failure to find the Rain-Girl. 
Once more he was conscious of an acute feeling of 
depression; but after his bath, and as he proceeded 
to dress, the clouds again seemed to lift, and he 
became hopeful. 

At breakfast, however, another disappointment 
awaited him. There was no sign of the Rain-Girl. 
He lingered over his meal as long as possible in the 
hope that she were breakfasting late. He became 
conscious even that the waiters were regarding him 


80 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


little curiously. It was not usual for the guests to 
remain at the breakfast-table for two hours. 

When at length Beresford rose, it was with the 
firm conviction that the Rain-Girl was not staying 
at the Ritz-Carlton. In spite of this he loitered 
about the hotel until noon, when he took another 
stroll up Piccadilly and along Bond Street, and 
through the most frequented thoroughfares of the 
West-End. 

Perhaps she was away for a long week-end, he 
told himself, and would be back to lunch. She might 
even be confined to her room with a chill. At this 
thought he smiled. The warm, mellow sunshine 
seemed to negative all possibility of any one con- 
tracting a chill. 

As he wandered through the streets thinking of all 
the things that could possibly have prevented her 
from being at three consecutive meals, he found 
himself becoming more hopeful, and looking for- 
ward to lunch-time as presenting another chance 
of a possible meeting. 

Suddenly a thought struck him, so forcibly in fact 
as to bring him to a standstill. Had she and her 
aunt a private suite of rooms in which their meals 
were served? That was it. Therein lay the explana- 
tion of why he had not seen her. She was just 
the type of girl who would dislike a hotel dining- 
room, he told himself, in fact she had implied as 
much when speaking of the London Season. Had 
she not said how much she disliked it, and how she 


THE SEARCH BEGINS 


81 


yearned for the quiet of the country? What a fool 
he had been not to think of it before. 

He returned to the hotel with a feeling of exhil- 
aration. A new optimism had taken possession of 
him. He was no longer entirely dependent upon the 
dining-room, in fact that was least likely to bring 
about a meeting with the Rain-Girl. At the same 
time its possibilities must not be under-estimated. 
No doubt occasionally she would lunch or dine there 
for the sake of variety, possibly when entertaining 
friends, to whose preferences she would naturally 
defer. Yes, he must continue his search. It would 
not do to be discouraged during the first twenty-four 
hours. She was spending the Season in London; 
about this she had been quite definite. She was also 
going to stay at the Ritz-Carlton ; here again she had 
left no room for doubt. 

The chances of anything having intervened to 
prevent this arrangement being carried out were 
comparatively remote, certainly not sufficiently tan- 
gible to discourage him in the prosecution of his 
search. He would leave nothing to chance, he would 
go to all the public social functions he could, walk 
in the Park, stroll about the streets. He would go 
to Westminster Abbey on Sunday — a good idea that; 
she was just the sort of girl who would love the 
Abbey, attend first nights, in short do the very things 
from which a few weeks ago he had precipitately 
fled. The one thing he would not do was to renew 
old friendships. If he did his time would no longer 


82 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


be his own, and he was determined to devote every 
minute of the day to his search. 

The days he continued to spend in aimless wan- 
dering along Piccadilly, Pall Mall, the Haymarket, 
and the Park, looking into every face he met, now 
quickening his pace to overtake some likely girl, now 
slowing down to allow another to pass. He felt 
sure that the police had him under observation. It 
must, he decided, appear all so obvious. 

Several times he jumped into a taxi and instructed 
the driver to follow some other taxi or car. The 
first time he did this he was conscious of a feeling of 
embarrassment; but the man’s sang-froid convinced 
Beresford that there was nothing unusual in the pro- 
cedure. Once he found himself at Richmond before 
discovering that his quarry was not the Rain-Girl. 
On another occasion he stopped the man when half- 
way to Beckenham. It was a curious thing, he 
decided, that every girl in a car or taxi who bore a 
sufficiently striking resemblance to the Rain-Girl to 
mislead him, seemed to be bound for a far-distant 
destination. 

On one occasion, as he was standing at the corner 
of Bond Street, preparatory to crossing, a taxi darted 
out into the stream of Piccadilly traffic. He caught 
a momentary glimpse of the occupant, which sent 
his heart racing. Tumbling into an empty taxi he 
gave the man his instructions. The next moment his 
vehicle had come to a standstill with a grinding of 
tyres. The other taxi had stopped ten yards down 


THE SEARCH BEGINS 


Piccadilly, and the girl was paying the driver. It 
was not the Rain-Girl. 

For his own satisfaction Beresford measured the 
distance of that drive, which had cost him half a 
crown. It consisted of exactly thirty-eight paces, 
thirty-one and four-fifth yards. This, he decided, 
must be the shortest drive on record. 

It was fatiguing work, both mentally and physi- 
cally, this eternal and uncertain pursuit, and he was 
always glad to get back to the Ritz-Carlton for 
lunch, tea or dinner. Every time he entered the 
dining-room, it was with a slight thrill of anticipa- 
tion. Some day he would perhaps see her sitting 
there, and know that the search was ended. 

His hopes would wane with the day, and when 
night came and dinner was over, he would tell him- 
self what a fool he was, how hopeless was the quest 
upon which he, like some modern knight-errant, had 
set out; yet each morning found him eager and 
determined to pursue what he had now come almost 
to regard as his destiny. 

Not only was there his search for the Rain-Girl; 
but he had always to be on the look out to avoid 
possible friends and acquaintance. Once he had 
caught sight of Lady Drewitt in her carriage, on 
another occasion he had avoided Lord Peter Bowen 
only by dashing precipitately into an A.B.C. shop. 
How he escaped he could never be quite sure. He 
had a vague idea that he pretended to have mis- 
taken the place for an office of the boy-messengers,, 
or boy scouts, he could not remember which; but 


84 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


judging from the look on the faces of two young 
women behind the counter, he rather thought it 
must have been the boy scouts. 

It was during the evening of the day of this last 
adventure that he asked himself whether or no he 
were altogether wise in neglecting his acquaintance. 
Possibly the Rain-Girl knew some one he knew. 
Why not put a bold face on things and let people 
know that he was back in town? Tell them frankly 
that the country was too episodic for a man unpro- 
vided with a long line of bucolic ancestors. They 
would laugh, the men would indulge in superficial 
jokes at his expense, and the women would look at 
him a little pityingly, as they always looked at 
Edward Seymour. Why any one should want to 
pity Edward Seymour seemed difficult to understand. 
Those who merited pity were the poor unfortunates 
who had to live or associate with him. 

Yes, in future he would look out for old friends 
rather than avoid them. He would run round and 
see his cousin, Lord Drewitt. The one thing he 
would not do, however, was to call upon Aunt Caro- 
line. That would be like firing at a water-spout, a 
deliberate invitation to trouble. 


CHAPTER VI 


LORD DREWITT'S PERPLEXITIES 

O N the afternoon of the following day Beres- 
ford found himself setting out upon a 
subsidiary quest, the discovery of the friends 
and acquaintance that hitherto it had been his one 
object to avoid. Whatever his own state of mind, 
the day at least was perfect. June had spread her 
gayest gossamer over Piccadilly. The sun shone 
as if in a moment of geographical forgetfulness. 
Pretty women and well-tailored men streamed to 
and from the Park, whilst the roadway was a des- 
perate congestion of traffic, controlled by patient 
optimists. Here and there an ampty sleeve, or a 
pair of crutches, acted as a reminder of the war, 
which otherwise seemed countless centuries away. 

It was like a day from a society novel, where 
it never rains when the heroine wears her best frock. 
It was an unreal, artificial, fantastical, and hitherto 
unprecedented day. From Bond Street to Knights- 
bridge, not an umbrella or a mackintosh was to be 
seen, nevertheless it was June in London. 

Beresford sauntered idly down Piccadilly in the 
direction of Hyde Park Corner, enjoying the 
warmth and admiring all that was to be admired.. 
85 


86 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


Into the tin pannikin of the old blind man outside 
Devonshire House he dropped a shilling. It was 
clearly a day for silver largesse, for light and love 
and lingering. He smiled at the thought of the 
absurdity of his own position. Something like one 
hundred and twenty pounds stood between him and 
absolute destitution. What would the passers-by 
think if they knew, — Lady Tanagra Elton, for 
instance, who had just driven by? What would she 
say? What would ? 

“Hullo, Drew!” he broke off his speculations sud- 
denly, as a tall, fair-haired man was about to pass 
him. 

Fixing his monocle in his right eye, Lord Drewitt 
gazed at his cousin with expressionless face. 

“My dear Richard,” he drawled, “I invariably 
cut the family skeleton during the Season. Ghosts 
I never acknowledge, even in August, when my social 
standard is at its lowest ebb.” 

Beresford laughed, linked his arm in that of his 
cousin and turned him westward. 

“Anyhow, you’ve got to take me into the club 
and give me a barley-water,” he said. 

Although different in temperament and character 
in about as many ways as two men can differ, Beres- 
ford and his cousin had always been on the best of 
terms. Lord Drewitt’s pose of frank cynicism, soft- 
ened by a certain dry humour, was to Beresford 
always amusing. 

“To give a man a title and two thousand a year 
on which to keep it out of the mud,” Lord Drewitt 


LORD DREWITT’S PERPLEXITIES 87 


would say, “is a little joke that only the Almighty 
and the Aunt are capable of appreciating.” 

In spite of his expensive tastes and insufficient 
income, Lord Drewitt had repeatedly refused press- 
ing invitations to join the Boards of quite reputable 
companies. On one occasion, when a very obtuse 
financier had doubled his original offer of five 
hundred a year for “the most inconspicuous tax upon 
your lordship’s time,” Lord Drewitt had lazily 
asked him if he had ever played in a ’varsity match 
at Lord’s. The puzzled city man confessed that he 
had not. 

“Well, I have,” was the reply, “and you learn a 
devil of a lot of cricket in the process, more than 
you can ever forget in the city.” 

Lord Drewitt had greatly offended his aunt, Lady 
Drewitt, when on one occasion she had suggested 
that he might go into the city, by saying, “My dear 
aunt, it has been said that it takes three generations 
to make a gentleman. I am the third Baron 
Drewitt.” 

For fully a minute the two men walked westward 
without speaking. It was Drewitt who at length 
broke the silence. 

“I understood, Richard, that you had forsaken 
the haunts of men in favour of sitting under hedges 
and haystacks.” 

“I had to give it up,” said Beresford with a self- 
conscious laugh. “I found the country is for the 
temperamentally robust.” 


88 THE RAIN-GIRL 

Drewitt turned and looked at him, but made no 
comment. 

“There’s too much incident, too much excitement, 
too many adventures for a man accustomed to the 
quiet of town life,” continued Beresford. “If you 
really want to be alone you must be in London.” 

“I believe that has been said before,” remarked 
Drewitt drily, as they climbed the steps of the Diplo- 
matic Club and passed into the smoking room. 

With a sigh Drewitt threw himself into a chair. 

“Where are you staying?” he enquired. 

“At the Ritz-Carlton.” 

Drewitt merely raised his eyebrows and, beck- 
oning a waiter, ordered whiskies-and-sodas. 

“What’s she like?” With great deliberation he 
proceeded to light a cigarette. Presently he raised 
his eyes and looked enquiringly at Beresford over 
the flame. 

“You impute everything to a wrong motive ” 

began Beresford. 

“A woman is not a motive, my dear Richard,” 
interrupted Drewitt; “she’s an imaginative extrava- 
gance of Nature, like a mushroom, or the aurora 
borealis.” 

“You expect,” continued Beresford, ignoring the 
interruption, “that every man is capable of making 
an ass of himself about some woman and, naturally, 
you are never surprised when he does.” 

“The surprise generally comes when I meet the 
woman,” was the dry retort. “What does the Aunt 
say?” 


LORD DREWITTS PERPLEXITIES 89 

“I haven’t seen her yet,” Beresford confessed. 

“There are only two sorts of men in the world, 
Richard,” said Drewitt after a short silence. “Those 
who make asses of themselves and those ” 

“How is she,” interrupted Beresford. 

“Who, the Aunt?” 

“Yes.” 

“At the present moment she is much occupied 
with a project by which I shall become the legal pro- 
tector of a lady’s freckled and rather shapeless 
charms and, incidentally, the guardian of her estate, 
amounting to I forget how many million dollars.” 

“Noblesse oblige,” laughed Beresford. 

“Noblesse be damned,” murmured Drewitt 
evenly. “The situation is not without its embarrass- 
ments,” he added. 

“But surely you can decline,” said Beresford. 
“You have your two thousand a year.” 

“Two thousand a year is just sufficient to embar- 
rass a man who otherwise might have carved out a 
career for himself, in accordance with the best tradi- 
tions of the novel. With nothing at aJl I should 
have got into the illustrated papers as a romantic 
figure in London Society; but with two thousand a 

y ear ” he shrugged his shoulders and, with great 

deliberation, extinguished his cigarette in the ash- 
tray beside him. 

“There is always hope, Drew, ‘Unto him who 
hath shall be given.’ ” 

“Precisely,” replied Drewitt, “unto him that hath 
two thousand a year shall be given Aunt Caroline 


90 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


for all time. She has, however, a peculiarly discrim- 
inating nature. She recognises the inadequacy of 
two thousand a year to keep up the title of the 
barony of Drewitt.” 

“Some day she’ll give you a little out of her own 
fifty thousand a year,” suggested Beresford. 

“My dear Richard,” Drewitt drawled, “there is 
an obvious bourgeois trait in you. The Aunt is a 
woman of originality and imagination. She does 
much better than that. She collects and hurls at me 
all the heiresses for continents round. Such figures, 
such faces, such limbs, exist nowhere outside the 
imagination of a German caricaturist. Sometimes 
they have attached to them mammas, sometimes 
papas, which merely adds to the horror of the situ- 
ation. I suppose,” he continued resignedly, “it is 
due to the rise in democracy that the accent and 
waist-measurement of wealth should be as obvious 
as the Chiltern Hills.” 

“But surely there are some heiresses with attrac- 
tions, Drew,” suggested Richard. 

Drewitt shook his head in profound dejection. 

“None, my dear Richard, none. Even if there 
were, there would always be the relatives. Why 
is it,” he demanded plaintively, “that we are 
endowed with relatives?” 

“That’s where birds and animals have the best 
of it,” said Beresford, watching an impudent-looking 
sparrow on the window-ledge. “They don’t even 
know their relatives.” 

“That, too, would have its disadvantages,” said 


LORD DREWITT’S PERPLEXITIES 91 

Drewitt gloomily; “if we didn’t know them, we 
might adopt them as friends, and only find out our 
mistake when it was too late.” 

“But why trouble about marrying?” asked Beres- 
ford. “You can rub along fairly well on two thou- 
sand a year.” 

“Rub along,” retorted Drewitt in a voice that 
contained something of feeling, “I can rub along: 
but I have to marry and produce little Drewitts for 
the sake of the title. I can’t go round with a barrel- 
piano, I should be bound to catch cold; besides, I 
have no sense of rhythm.” 

Beresford laughed at the expression of unutter- 
able gloom upon his cousin’s face. 

“To throw a man upon the tender mercies of the 
world as the third peer of a line is a shameful and 
humiliating act.” 

Drewitt gazed reflectively at the cigarette he had 
just selected from his case. Striking a match, he 
lighted it with great deliberation. 

“All titles,” he continued, “like the evening 
papers, should begin at the fourth issue, and then 
there might be a sort of final night edition, after 
which 'the line would become extinct.” 

“But how ” began Beresford. 

Drewitt motioned him to silence. 

“There would be some virtue in being the seventh 
Baron Drewitt,” he explained. “A seventh baron 
might have traditions, a family ghost, a picture 
gallery of acquired ancestors. These are the things 
which make a Family. No family should be admitted 


92 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


to Burke without a ghost, one that walks in clanking 
chains, although why ghosts should choose these un- 
musical accompaniments I’ve never been able to 
discover. Then there should be a thoroughly dis- 
reputable ancestor, or ancestress, generally called 
Sir Rupert, or Lady Marjorie, and finally a motto 
that shall foretell the happening of something when 
something else takes place.” 

He sipped his whiskey-and-soda with an air of 
deep depression. 

“The Drewitts have no ghost, nothing more dis- 
reputable than myself, and the nearest thing to a 
family motto that we can lay claim to is the trade 
mark of the far-famed Drewitt Ales, a ship on a 
sea of beer above the thrilling legend: 

“ T see it foam 
Where’er I roam/ 

Richard,” he said, leaning forward and speaking 
earnestly, “that is what keeps me back. I’ve just 
realised it. It’s that damned motto. 

“The Aunt’s latest scheme,” he continued after a 
pause, “is concerned with one Lola Craven, reputed 
to have well over a million inherited from an uncle 
who undermined the constitution of the British 
Empire by producing New Zealand mutton, which 
found its way over here in a frozen state. I tasted 
the stuff once, I actually swallowed the first mouth- 
ful,” he added. 

“What is she like?” asked Beresford. 


LORD DRE WITT’S PERPLEXITIES 93 

‘‘Probably like the mutton,” answered Drewitt; 
“they descend upon me with such rapidity that I 
cannot get the taste of one out of my mouth before 
another is produced. Ida Hopkins was the last, 
she of the freckles. Her shapelessness, my dear 
Richard, was really most indelicate. She bulged 
wherever she should have receded, and receded 
everywhere she should have bulged.” 

“And what did Aunt Caroline say?” enquired 
Beresford. 

“Oh, she said quite a lot about saving the title, 
and the woman who was content with her place by 
the fireside. I pointed out some of Ida’s physical 
imperfections, and suggested a photographer’s dark- 
room in preference to the fireside; but the Aunt said 
that if I wished to be indelicate, I had better go; 
so I went, and Ida has taken her gross inequalities 
to another market. It’s all very tame and tedious,” 
he added. 

“What’s Lola Craven like?” asked Beresford. 

“I haven’t the most remote idea. She has one 
advantage, however, she’s an orphan, with only an 
aunt attachment.” 

“Lola Craven is also a much better name than 
Ida Hopkins.” 

“When you marry,” said Drewitt, “you don’t live 
with a visiting-card, you have to live with a woman. 
That’s what makes marriage so infernally uncom- 
fortable. But tell me about yourself.” 

Beresford outlined the adventures that had be- 
fallen him, making no mention, however, of the 


94 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


Rain-Girl. When he had finished Drewitt regarded 
him with interest. 

“There is one thing I have always liked about 
you, Richard, you’re an ass; but you don’t seem 
to mind other people knowing it. Most of the asses 
I have met endeavour to camouflage their asinine 
qualities with lions’ skins. Is it indiscreet to enquire 
what you propose to do?” 

“I shall carry on to the extent of my finances,” 
said Beresford with a smile. 

“And then?” 

“Oh I I may enter for the Ida Hopkins stakes.” 

“You might, but I’m afraid it’s no good. Ida’s 
out for plunder, she will sell her charms only for a 
title, and you have nothing more attractive than a 
D.S.O. and the reputation of being mentally a little 
unequally balanced, at least that is what the Aunt 
would tell her. In any case I wouldn’t recommend 
Ida.” 

“Why?” 

“Even if you could accommodate your ideas to 
her figure and its defiance of the law of feminine 
proportion, you would find her freckles a source of 
constant worry. They are like a dewildering bed- 
room wall-paper to an invalid. You have to try and 
count them, and of course you lose your place and 
start again. When I first met her they so fascin- 
ated me that I could do nothing but stare at her, and 
she blushed. Heavens ! that blush. It was the most 
awful thing I have ever encountered. I felt that it 
must inevitably be followed by a violent perspiration. 


LORD DREWITT’S PERPLEXITIES 95 

I fled. No, Richard; give up all thought of Ida. 
Why, even now I live in daily terror lest some man 
I know may marry her and ask me to be best man. 
Now I must be going. I’m due at the Bolsovers’ at 
four o’clock, and it’s already half-past five.” 

Both men rose and walked towards the door. 

“By the way, is it absolutely necessary that you 
should stay at the Ritz-Carlton?” 

“Absolutely,” with decision. 

“Ah, well! you’re an interesting sort of ass, 
Richard, I will say that for you. I’ll see that you 
meet Lola. Sometimes these heiresses like a fool 
without a title just as much as one with, and it 
would please the Aunt to keep her in the family. 
Good-bye.” 

Drewitt hailed a taxi and drove off, Beresford 
turning westward. He had refused his cousin’s 
invitation to lunch on the morrow, determined to be 
free of all engagements. He turned gloomily into 
the Park, crossed the road and sat down upon a 
vacant chair. In a novel the Rain-Girl would drive 
by in a car or carriage, bow to him half shyly and 
with a blush. He would start up and she would 
order the chauffeur or coachman to stop. He would 
be introduced to the aunt, invited to lunch and 

“Oh, damn!” 

Beresford stabbed viciously at the gravel with his 
stick, and glared savagely at an inoffensive little 
man with grey mutton-chop whiskers, who looked 
amazed that any one could be profane on so per- 
fect a day. 


96 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“Beg pardon, sir; but ’er Ladyship would like 
to speak to you.” 

The voice seemed to come suddenly from no- 
where. Beresford turned to find Rogers, Lady 
Drewitt’s first footman, at his elbow. He looked 
beyond Rogers and saw Lady Drewitt herself seated 
in her carriage, examining him attentively through 
her lorgnettes. With her was Mrs. Edward Sey- 
mour. 

Beresford walked slowly and reluctantly towards 
the carriage. What cursed luck, he told himself, 
to run up against Aunt Caroline so early in his ad- 
venture. 

Caroline, Lady Drewitt, was the widow of the 
second Baron Drewitt of Tonscombe, who had died 
at the age of fifty, leaving to his lady an enormous 
fortune and to his nephew, Philip, the title with two 
thousand a year. The first Baron had gone “up- 
stairs” by virtue of the famous Drewitt Ales, and 
a profound belief in the soundness of Tory princi- 
ples and legislative inspiration. 

Lady Drewitt took it as her mission in life to 
see that “the family” behaved itself. Whenever a 
Drewitt or a Challice — Lady Drewitt was a Chal- 
lice before her marriage — got into difficulties the 
first thought was, what would Lady Drewitt think? 
but this was as nothing to the morbid speculation 
as to what she would probably say. She had a 
worldly brain and a biting tongue. She never strove 
to smooth troubled waters; but by making them in- 
tolerably rough frequently achieved the same end. 


LORD DREWITT’S PERPLEXITIES 97 

As Beresford approached, Lady Drewitt con- 
tinued to stare at him with uncompromising intent- 
ness through her lorgnettes. 

“What is the meaning of this, Richard?” she de- 
manded in level tones as he reached the side of the 
carriage. 

“That’s just what has been puzzling me,” said 
Beresford, smiling across at his cousin Cecily. “I 
think the weather people call it the approach of an 
anti-cyclone. For June in London it’s really ” 

“Don’t be a fool, Richard. Why are you in Lon- 
don?” 

“My dear Aunt, it’s June and I am a Challice. 
We Challices all gravitate towards the metropolis 

in June just as the cuckoo gravitates What is 

it the cuckoo gravitates towards, Cecily?” he en- 
quired, turning suddenly to Mrs. Edward. 

“You said that you were going to sell all your — 
your ” 

“Duds,” suggested Beresford helpfully, as Lady 
Drewitt hesitated. “I did.” He enjoyed Mrs. 
Edward’s scandalised look. 

“Then how is it ?” again she hesitated. 

“I bought more. My tailor seemed quite 
pleased,” he added as an afterthought. 

“But why are you in town, Richard?” burst out 
Mrs. Edward, unable longer to restrain herself. 
Her tone seemed to imply that Beresford’s being 
in London was an offence against good taste. 

“The bucolic life was too much for me, Cecily. 
You would be astounded at the bewildering manner 


98 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


in which adventures descend upon the would-be vaga- 
bond and recluse.” 

“Where are you staying?” demanded Lady Drew- 
itt, with the air of one not to be trifled with. 

“At the Ritz-Carlton.” 

“The Ritz-Carlton!” Lady Drewitt’s lorgnettes 
fell from her nerveless hand and her jaw dropped. 

“A little bourgeois perhaps,” admitted Beresford, 
“but it’s really quite respectable.” 

“You will come and dine with me to-night, Rich- 
ard.” There was grim determination in Lady 
Drewitt’s tone. 

“I’m afraid I cannot, Aunt Caroline, I ” 

“Then lunch to-morrow.” 

“As a matter of fact I am engaged for all meals 
for the next six weeks.” Beresford had determined 
not to risk missing the Rain-Girl by either lunching 
or dining away from the Ritz-Carlton. 

Lady Drewitt continued to stare. 

"“If I may run in to tea one afternoon,” he sug- 
gested. 

“To-morrow, then, at four.” Lady Drewitt’s 
jaws closed with a snap. 

With a smile and a bow Beresford lifted his hat 
and strolled away, feeling that there were com- 
pensations in a life that permitted a man to refuse 
two invitations from a wealthy relative. 

Lady Drewitt drove home, and beside her sat 
Mrs. Edward, who had just remembered with a sigh 
of misgiving that she and her husband were dining 
that night with their “dear Aunt Caroline.” 


CHAPTER VII 


LADY DREWITT SPEAKS HER MIND 

A S Payne threw open the door on the follow- 
ing afternoon, Beresford thought he de- 
tected a look of sympathy upon his features, 
and he mentally decided that the first-footman had 
narrated in the servants’-hall the conversation in the 
Park of the previous afternoon. 

“Well, Payne, how’s the rheumatism?” he en- 
quired. 

“It’s been a little better lately, sir; I’ve taken to 
drinking water.” 

“Good heavens! with nothing in it?” 

Payne shook his head and smiled sadly. 

“We shall hear of your starting a temperance 
hotel next,” said Beresford, as Payne led the way 
to the morning-room. 

“God forbid, sir,” he said fervently; then, throw- 
ing open the door, he announced Beresford. 

“What is the meaning of this, Richard?” de- 
manded Lady Drewitt, before Payne had time to 
close the door behind him. 

“The meaning of what, Aunt Caroline?” asked 
Beresford, as he seated himself. 

“You know perfectly well what I mean,” said 
99 


100 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


Lady Drewitt grimly. “Why are you in town?” 

“I’ve had pneumonia, and the doctor ordered me 
to Folkestone, so ” 

“Then why didn’t you go there?” demanded Lady 
Drewitt uncompromisingly. 

Beresford racked his brains for some reason he 
could give as to why he had not gone direct to Folke- 
stone. 

“You see,” he began hesitatingly, then with in- 
spiration, “I had to come to town to get some 
clothes.” He' looked down at his well-groomed per- 
son. 

“You don’t want clothes at Folkestone in June,” 
snapped Lady Drewitt. 

“Men do, Aunt Caroline,” said Beresford; “it’s 
only the seaside-girl who does without.” 

“Don’t be indelicate.” Then after a pause she 
continued, “You come and tell me you are about to 
become a tramp, and the next I hear is that you are 
living at the Ritz-Carlton. I want to know what it 
means.” 

“To be frank, Aunt Caroline, it means that the 
country-side was too exciting for me. It requires 
a constitution of bronze and a temperament of re- 
inforced concrete.” 

“When you see your way to talk sense, Richard, 
I shall possibly be able to understand you.” Lady 
Drewitt folded her hands in her ample black silk 
lap and waited. 

“I doubt it,” said Beresford pleasantly. “As a 
matter of fact I entirely fail to understand myself.” 


LADY DREWITT SPEAKS HER MIND 101 

“You are my sister’s only son.” 

He recognised the grim note of duty in his aunt’s 
voice. As he did not reply she continued: 

“And it is my duty to ” 

“Couldn’t we leave duty out of the question,” he 
suggested, “at least for the present?” 

“I demand an explanation, Richard,” continued 
Lady Drewitt inexorably. 

“There’s very little to tell,” said he. “I started 
out on my adventure, and at the end of the first day 
I got pneumonia. That meant five weeks spent at 
‘The Two Dragons,’ with a sort of musical-comedy 
doctor and an insane nurse. Incidentally it cost me 
well over fifty pounds. I then decided that the 
country was too exciting for me, so I came back to 
town for a rest.” 

“But why are you staying at the Ritz-Carlton?” 

“It does as well as any other place,” was the re- 
sponse, “although I must confess that in poaching 
eggs they are not inspired, but then I never liked 
eggs ; still, their bisque a I’ecrevisse leaves little room 
for criticism.” 

“What does it cost you there?” 

“I really haven’t been into the financial aspect of 
the affair,” said Beresford. “I should say roughly 
from twenty-five to thirty pounds a week. It’s 
really quite moderate as things are.” 

Lady Drewitt gasped; but recovered herself in- 
stantly. 

“And you have about two hundred pounds left,” 
she said, making a swift mental calculation. 


102 THE RAIN-GIRL 

“One hundred and twenty-five pounds three-and- 
sixpence-halfpenny, to be strictly accurate,” re- 
sponded Beresford. “I take stock of my finances 
every morning. I should add, in justice to myself, 
that I owe not any man.” 

“So that at about the end of four weeks you will 
be ■” 

“Impoverished, but as the Season will be over 
and ” 

“What do you propose to do?” demanded Lady 
Drewitt. 

“As a matter of fact,” he said candidly, “I don’t 
propose to do anything in particular. I’m just 
drifting.” 

“How are you going to live?” Lady Drewitt was 
not to be denied. 

“I hadn’t thought of it.” 

Lady Drewitt was clearly nonplussed. 

“You can’t live without money,” she announced 
presently. 

“Need we dot all the ‘i’s’ and cross all the ‘t’s’?” 
he enquired smilingly. “I might try a barrel-piano 
with a ticket on it announcing that I am a cousin 
of Lord Drewitt and nephew of Lady Drewitt.” 

“Don’t be a fool, Richard,” was the uncompro- 
mising response. “Do you expect me ” she 

paused. 

“On the contrary,” he said quietly, “I have never 
expected anything of you, Aunt Caroline. That is 
why we have always been such excellent friends.” 


LADY DREWITT SPEAKS HER MIND 103 


For a moment Lady Drewitt eyed Beresford se- 
verely. 

“I shall have to consult Drewitt and your cousin, 
Edward Seymour,” she announced. 

“I beg of you not to,” he said. “Poor Drewitt 
is fully occupied in dodging the heiresses you hurl 
at his head, and as for Edward, I never could place 
any reliance in the opinion of a man with extrava- 
gant tastes and no chin. Besides, he is an echo of 
his wife, who is a reflection of you.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“They neither of them have a will of their own,” 
said Beresford, “and always reflect your opinions.” 

“I shall consult Drewitt,” announced Lady 
Drewitt. 

“I’m afraid it’s of no use. I consulted him my- 
self yesterday afternoon.” 

“And what did he say?” 

“He suggested that I might take a sort of re- 
versionary interest in the heiresses that were pro- 
duced for his approval. He thought I might begin 
on Miss Ida Hopkins ; but he was frankly pessimis- 
tic. He doubted if I could refrain from trying to 
count her freckles.” 

“Don’t be flippant, Richard.” Lady Drewitt was 
annoyed. “You have your career to consider. You 
are young.” 

“But I was a failure at Whitehall,” he added. 

“If you don’t like the Foreign Office,” persisted 
Lady Drewitt, “why don’t you do something else?” 


104 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“There is so little open to a man with all the limi- 
tations of a university education.” 

“I’m afraid you’re lazy.” Lady Drewitt’s tone 
implied no doubt whatever. 

“No,” said Beresford evenly, “I don’t think I can 
be accused of being lazy; it’s merely that I don’t 
want to do anything. I’m tired of all this praise 
lavished on industry. I shall be just as happy in 
the next world as those inventive geniuses who 
first conceived screw-tops for bottles, or the sock- 
suspender. I ” 

“You are talking nonsense.” 

“I’m afraid I am,” was the smiling retort. 

“You have already thrown up an excellent ap- 
pointment for no reason whatever.” 

“On the contrary, Aunt Caroline, I threw it up 
for a very excellent reason. I wanted to develop 
my soul.” 

“Fiddlesticks.” 

Beresford shrugged his shoulders. 

“I confess I had reckoned without pneumonia,” 
he added. 

“I told you that you would catch cold, or some- 
thing of the sort,” said Lady Drewitt with unction. 

“You did, Aunt Caroline; I give you every credit 
for pre-vision.” 

“And now you come back to London, spend your 
money buying new clothes and in expensive living, 
and at the end of a month you’ll be a beggar.” 

“Impoverished was the word, aunt. One can be 
impoverished without begging.” 


LADY DREWITT SPEAKS HER MIND 105 

“But how are you to live?” 

“I didn’t say I was going to live. I might pos- 
sibly die artistically of starvation.” 

“Why don’t you go to the colonies?” demanded 
Lady Drewitt. 

“I have never been enthusiastic about the colo- 
nies,” he replied. “I dislike Australian wines, 
Canadian cheese, New Zealand mutton, and in 
France it was a South African who saved my life. 
Then to add insult to injury the authorities gave him 
the D.C.M. No, Aunt Caroline, the colonies no 
more exist for me than they do for the Kaiser.” 

“Then what are you going to do?” persisted 
Lady Drewitt. 

“Frankly I haven’t the foggiest idea,” he admit- 
ted, as Payne entered, followed by Rogers with the 
tea-tray, which he proceeded to place beside Lady 
Drewitt. For a few moments there was silence, 
during which Payne and Rogers withdrew. “No 
sugar, please,” said Beresford, as Lady Drewitt 
poised a lump over his cup. 

“If you would go to the colonies, Richard, I might 
be prepared to ” 

“Give me your blessing, exactly, Aunt Caroline,” 
interrupted Beresford suavely. “I have, however, 
made it a rule ever since we have been acquainted 
to value your good opinion more than your largesse.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“You are too shrewd not to appreciate that wealth 
has strange and devious influences. It causes to 
flow the milk of human kindness, it makes one’s con- 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


106 

temporaries strangely tolerant, it permits the pos- 
sessor to say things that would otherwise not be tol- 
erated. In short, it does quite a lot of things. No, 
I have never expecte v d your wealth, nor do I want 
it. Your advice, like greatness, is thrust upon me; 
but I prefer to meet you on equal terms.” 

For a moment there was a strange look in Lady 
Drewitt’s eyes, as she stared fixedly at her nephew. 

“You’re a fool, Richard,” she said with decision. 
“You always were a fool; but ” 

“I am at least an honest fool. I must have an- 
other one of those cream cakes,” he added. “You 
see a man with only four weeks of social life can 
eat anything. He hasn’t to think of his waist-meas- 
urement.” 

Lady Drewitt regarded him with a puzzled ex- 
pression. 

“I shall have to see Drewitt about you,” she an- 
nounced. 

“He is too fully occupied with his own concerns. 
When we discussed the reversionary interest in his 
heiresses, he asked me what I had to give in return, 
and I had to confess that all I possessed was a tem- 
perament. No woman wants a husband with a 
temperament, at least, she’s not prepared to pay 
for it.” 

“I shall speak to your cousin Edward Seymour,” 
announced Lady Drewitt with decision. 

“I assure you it will be of no use, Aunt Caroline. 
With that long fair moustache of his, Edward al- 
ways reminds me of a dissipated and diminutive 


LADY DREWITT SPEAKS HER MIND 107 

Viking. There are, however, always Drew’s heir- 
esses,” he said as he rose. “If you will put in a 
good word for me, say that I’m tame, with no par- 
ticularly bad habits, don’t like cards, seldom take 
cold, and am as domesticated as a foundling cat, I 
feel I have a chance.” He held out his hand, and 
Lady Drewitt extended hers with reluctance. 

“Richard, you’re a fool,” she announced with al- 
most vindictive decision. He smiled, bowed and 
closed the door behind him. 

“Payne,” he remarked as the butler opened the 
door for him, “there are worse things in life than 
rheumatism;” and he went down the steps leaving 
Payne to digest the remark. 

As Beresford walked along Curzon Street he saw 
the Edward Seymours approaching; their mission 
was too obvious to require explanation. They were 
calling on Lady Drewitt to hear the result of the 
interview with her prodigal nephew. 

“Well,” sneered Edward Seymour in the tone he 
invariably adopted to Beresford, “have you enjoyed 
yourself?” 

“Immensely, thank you, Edward,” was the smil- 
ing reply. “It always does me good to hear Aunt 
Caroline talk of you.” 

“Talk of me.” There was eagerness and anxi- 
ety in Edward Seymour’s voice, as he looked sharply 
at Beresford, and then apprehensively in the di- 
rection of his wife. 

“What did dear Aunt Caroline say about Ed- 
ward?” enquired Mrs. Edward sweetly. 


108 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“I’m afraid ” began Beresford, then paused. 

“I’m afraid I couldn’t repeat it before you, Cecily.” 

Mrs. Edward looked at him sharply. Into Ed- 
ward Seymour’s eyes had crept a look of vindictive 
malice. 

“It’s only his lies,” he said to his wife. “He’s 
jealous of me.” 

Beresford looked him up and down appraisingly. 
The little man squirmed under the smiling scorn 
he saw in his cousin’s eyes. 

“Yes,” said Beresford, “I think that must be the 
explanation. Good-bye,” and lifting his hat he 
passed on, feeling refreshed as a result of the en- 
counter. 

With something like trepidation Edward Seymour 
followed his wife into Lady Drewitt’s morning- 
room. It was always an ordeal for him to meet his 
aunt. She never hesitated to express her supreme 
contempt foi* the husband of her favourite niece. 

“Dear Aunt Caroline,” gushed Mrs. Edward. 
“We’ve just seen Richard. I’m afraid he has been 
worrying you.” 

“Sit down, Cecily,” she commanded; and Mrs. 
Edward subsided into a chair. “Don’t fidget, Ed- 
ward,” she snapped, turning irritably to her nephew. 

Edward Seymour started back from the album 
he was fingering, as if some one had run a hat-pin 
into him. 

“Make him sit down and be quiet, Cecily,” said 
Lady Drewitt complainingly. At a look from his 
wife Edward Seymour wilted into a chair. 


LADY DREWITT SPEAKS HER MIND 109 

“What did Richard say to you?” demanded Lady 
Drewitt. 

“He didn’t say anything, Aunt Caroline,” began 
Mrs. Edward tactfully, “but ” 

“He was very rude to me,” interrupted Edward 
Seymour peevishly. 

“What did he say?” demanded Lady Drewitt, 
fixing her uncomfortable nephew with her eye. 

“It was his manner,” Mrs. Edward hastened to 
say. “His manner is always very — very rude to 
poor Edward.” 

Lady Drewitt gave expression to a noise sugges- 
tive of a horse clearing its nostrils of fodder-dust. 

“He’s mad,” muttered Lady Drewitt half to her- 
ielf ; “but he’s got the real Challice independence.” 

“I’m afraid he worries you a lot, dear Aunt 
Caroline,” said Mrs. Edward, alarmed lest out of 
the kindness of her heart Lady Drewitt should take 
a too generous view of Beresford’s shortcomings. 

“He doesn’t worry me nearly so much as Edward 
does fidgeting,” snapped Lady Drewitt, fixing Ed- 
ward Seymour with her eye. “Why on earth do 
you bring him with you, Cecily?” 

Mrs. Edward threw a warning glance at her hus- 
band, then catching her aunt’s eye she smiled at him 
indulgently, much as if he had been a favourite dog 
whose removal from the room was under discus- 
sion. 

For half an hour Mrs. Edward strove to extract 
from Lady Drewitt what had taken place during 
her interview with Beresford; but without result. 


110 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


Lady Drewitt was not without shrewdness. Cecily 
Seymour was useful to her as a target for her arrows 
of scorn; but she possessed no illusions as to the na- 
ture of her niece and nephew’s devotion. The un- 
compromising independence of Beresford, although 
it angered her, at the same time commanded her re- 
spect. She was a woman, and the strong mascu- 
line personality of Beresford appealed to her in 
spite of herself. She demanded subservience; yet 
scorned those who gave it. She strove to break 
spirits, all the time instinctively admiring those that 
refused to be broken. 

As the Edward Seymours took their leave Lady 
Drewitt said — 

“Cecily, don’t bring Edward again, he fidgets too 
much.” 

On the way home Mrs. Edward made it clear to- 
her lord that if Aunt Caroline failed in what they 
hoped she would not fail, it would be entirely due 
to his constitutional inability to keep still. 

“I’m sorry,” he said miserably. 

“You’re not, you do it on purpose,” she retorted 
in a tone which convinced him that on the other side 
of their front-door there awaited him tears, and 
yet more tears. 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE HEIRESS INDISPOSED 

R ICHARD, I require moral courage,” said 
Drewitt, lazily, as he crumpled up into a 
basket-chair, which squeaked protestingly 
beneath his weight, “and if the funds will run to it, 
a whisky-and-soda.” 

Beresford beckoned to the waiter and gave the or- 
der. Hoskins had telephoned earlier in the day to 
say that Drewitt would be calling at the Ritz-Carlton 
about nine. 

“I’m bound for the Aunt’s,” continued Drewitt 
a few’ minutes later, when, fortified by the whisky- 
and-soda, he proceeded to light a cigarette. “There 
we shall meet the latest aspirant to my hand and 
what might be called ‘the trimmings.’ ” 

“Lola Craven?” 

“The same. Incidentally you accompany me. It 
has been said, I believe, that romance brought up 
the mne-iitteen. We shall in all probability be a 
few minutes late.” 

“But why on earth do you want me? I haven’t 
been invited.” 

“It’s a dinner-party, Richard, and the Aunt never 
desires poor relations at dinner-parties. At a crush, 


hi 


112 THE JtAIN-GIRL 

or a tea, it doesn’t matter, they can be pushed on 
one side, like a dubious oyster; but at dinner they 
must to some extent establish themselves in the gen- 
eral eye.” 

“But why do you want me to go with you?” per- 
sisted Beresford. 

“I require moral courage, Richard, and your 
clothes are newer than mine. Apart from that, for 
a poor relation you are really quite presentable.” 

“Thanks,” said Beresford drily. 

“For another thing I want a setting.” 

“A setting!” 

“The Aunt is rather obvious in her choice of men. 
For instance, to-night she will have a wonderful col- 
lection of undesirables. They will either have no 
hair on their heads, or hair all over their faces, like 
retired naval officers — celibate, of course. They 
are bound to be old and dull.” 

“But why the ” began Beresford. 

“One moment,” Drewitt raised a protesting hand. 
“She desires that I shall have no rival to my charms. 
That is why I’m taking you. I want to demonstrate 
to all whom it may concern that I can shine, even in 
the presence of another presentable man.” 

“Aunt Caroline won’t like it,” said Berecfo**^ du- 
biously. 

“As she never likes anything, your ^esence will 
not cause any deviation from the normal.” 

“But I thought you said it was a dinner,” said 
Beresford. 

“It was and is; but I gave a miss in baulk to the 


THE HEIRESS INDISPOSED 


113 


meal. I cannot stand the Aunt’s dinners. I told 
Hoskins to telephone that I had swallowed a fish- 
bone, or a stud, I’ve forgotten which. I shall know 
when I get there.” 

“But what the deuce do you want me to do?” 
asked Beresford, puzzled to account for his cousin’s 
insistence on his presence. 

“Nothing, my dear Richard, just what you are 
always doing in that inimitable and elegant manner 
of yours. You will merely act as a foil. The 
Aunt arranges these things rather badly. She fails 
to understand that if you like fair men, you like 
them more by virtue of the presence of a dark man, 
even if he happens to be an obvious fool.” 

“Thanks!” 

“Not at all,” was the reply; “you and I probably 
are the two most obvious fools west of St. 
Stephen’s.” 

“I’ll go if you wish it, Drew; but I’d rather not. 
Where Aunt Caroline is concerned I’m rather ” 

“A homoeopathist, exactly. I quite sympathise 
with you. To-night, however, I shall take it as a 
kindness if you’ll weigh-in,” and he rose to indicate 
that the time of departure had come. “I enjoy 
your conversation, Richard, I enjoy it intensely; but 
I cannot afford it at nearly a penny a minute. My 
taxi is waiting,” he explained. 

They drove the short distance to Curzon Street 
in silence. 

By the hum of conversation that greeted them as 


114 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


they walked upstairs, Beresford judged that it was 
a dinner-party of considerable proportions. 

“Lord Drewitt, Mr. Richard Beresford,” bawled 
Payne, as if determined that his voice should beat 
down the volume of sound that seemed set on es- 
caping from the room. Lady Drewitt was stand- 
ing near the door. As they entered she turned and 
sailed towards them. 

“Are you better?” she demanded with uncom- 
promising directness. 

“Much, thank you,” replied Drewitt, with a smile. 
“I sent out for another.” 

“Sent out for another!” she looked at him sus- 
piciously. “Payne said your man telephoned that 
you had a slight heart-attack.” 

“Ah! was that it? I thought I had swallowed a 
sleeve-link, the symptoms are so similar. By the 
way,” he added, “I made Richard come with me, 
I’m getting a little concerned about his spending his 
evenings alone in London.” 

Lady Drewitt gave Beresford a look that told 
him all he had anticipated; then, turning to Drewitt, 
she said, “I want to introduce you to Mrs. Crisp; 
Miss Craven is indisposed.” 

“It is not for the lamb to protest,” he murmured 
as he followed, leaving Beresford to amuse him- 
self by a contemplation of his aunt’s somewhat 
clumsy strategy in her selection of guests, most of 
whom were middle-aged or elderly. 

A moment later he felt a hand upon his arm, and 


THE HEIRESS INDISPOSED 115 

Drewitt was leading him to the other end of the 
room. 

“Please remember that I brought you as moral, 
not as military support, Richard,” he said. “Moral 
support is always in the van. You are a civilian 
now. You have ceased to be a soldier.” 

Lady Drewitt was talking to a little white-haired 
woman of vast volubility and rapid change of expres- 
sion. She had hard eyes, and a skin that in tint re- 
minded Beresford of putty. 

Lady Drewitt introduced Drewitt, and added 
Beresford as if he were an afterthought. She was 
obviously annoyed by his presence. Mrs. Crisp 
turned to Drewitt and proceeded to deluge him with 
short, jerky sentences, her words seeming to jostle 
each other as they streamed from her lips. Some- 
times the first letters of two words would become 
transposed, with rather startling results. 

“So unfortunate, Lord Drewitt. My niece has 
a severe headache. Quite prostrate. She stripped 
in the treet in Piccadilly. Such a dangerous place 
you know. Every one was so nice about it. A 
clergyman with black spats and such delightful man- 
ners. Long ones, you know, right up to the knee. 
He was most sympathetic. I think it’s a tooth; but 
the doctor says it’s an over-active brain. I want 
her to have it out. My dear father always did. 
He hadn’t any when he died. We buried him at 
Brookwood. Such a dreadful journey. I remem- 
ber I lost my handkerchief, and I had such a cold. 
My dear mother followed him in a year.” Having 


116 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


drenched her hearers with her verbal hose, Mrs. 
Crisp smiled, then continued, “You must meet her. 
She goes away to-morrow. I want you to come to 
breakfast. Mr. Quelch is coming. He’s so psy- 
chic. I love breakfast-parties.” The last few jets 
were directed solely at Drewitt. 

At the mention of the word “breakfast,” Beres- 
ford glanced across at Drewitt, who had probably 
never been out to breakfast in his life. He usually 
rose in time for lunch, provided it were a late lunch; 
yet without the flicker of an eyelash he was telling 
Mrs. Crisp that he feared he had a breakfast en- 
gagement for the morrow. 

“Who with?” demanded Lady Drewitt, suspi- 
ciously. 

In a moment of misguided loyalty Beresford 
dashed in to the rescue. 

“With me, Aunt Caroline.” He wondered why 
Drewitt flashed at him a reproachful glance. 

“Then you come too,” broke in Mrs. Crisp, ac- 
knowledging Beresford’s presence for the first time. 
“You’ll enjoy Mr. Quelch. He’s so fond of por- 
ridge, so am I. We have it every morning. It 
always reminds me of bag-pipes. Such dreadful 
things. They play them while you eat it in Scot- 
land. Or is it haggis? It made me very ill when 
I was in Edinburgh. Mr. Quelch loves it. Such 
psychic qualities.” Mrs. Crisp trailed off into stac- 
catoed superlatives relative to the merits and vir- 
tues of Mr. Quelch, as if he had been a culinary 
chef d y oeuvre, at the same time leaving in the minds 


THE HEIRESS INDISPOSED 


in 


of her hearers the impression that the porridge as 
well as Mr. Quelch was possessed of psychic quali- 
ties. 

“I’m afraid it’s a breakfast-party,” lied Beres- 
ford glibly. “I have asked some friends to meet 
my cousin, some Americans,” he added, thinking to 
impress Mrs. Crisp by giving to the engagement an 
international flavour. 

“So wonderful,” burst forth Mrs. Crisp, “they 
really think they won the war. Everybody seems 
to have won the war, except of course the Germans. 
Such nice people. Americans I mean. So psychic. 
Mr. Wilson, too, I hear he means to be Emperor. 
Mr. Quelch likes Americans. He says, I forget 
exactly what it was. It was very clever. They live 
on such funny things, grape-fruit and ice-water, and 
divorce costs hardly anything. So nice for the 
servants. I mean the grape-fruit and ice-water. 
So you’ll explain, Mr. Berry, won’t you?” 

Mrs. Crisp turned to Beresford with what she 
probably meant to be an arch look. “You will, 
won’t you?” To Drewitt she continued, “I’ll take 
no denial. Lola would never forgive me. She 
would be so disappointed. I hate disappointing her. 
This morning I promised her soles. They hadn’t 
any. So annoying of them. Do you like soles, 
Lord Drewitt?” 

“With me it is a matter of spelling.” 

“Oh, I see. I can’t spell either. Isn’t it strange. 
I always spell lose with two ‘o’s.’ ” 


118 THE RAIN-GIRL 

“I invariably spell camel with one hump,” said 
Drewitt gravely. 

“How amusing. I thought men could always 
spell. They’re so interesting, I think. Camels I 
mean. I saw one in Romeo and Juliet , or was it 
The Luck of the Navy?” 

i( Chu Chin Chow” suggested Beresford. 

“Ah! was it? So psychic it seemed. I love cam- 
els. You know they can go for years without water. 
So remarkable. I should like to keep a camel. I 
love pets. Have you ever kept anything, Lord 
Drewitt?” 

“Only a taxi once. I kept it for six hours. I for- 
got it was there ” 

“And the men are so rude,” continued Mrs. 
Crisp. “The other night one said dreadful things. 
I forget what they were. Most profane he was. 
You can’t stop them. The men I mean, not the 
taxis. But I’m told they’re getting better. There 
are more of them about. There’s bound to be the 
ping of the swendulum. But you will come to break- 
fast, won’t you?” Mrs. Crisp smiled a porcelain 
smile, whilst her hard little eyes glanced from one 
to the other, as if seeking a smouldering ember of 
hesitancy on which to turn her verbal spray. 

“I’m sure Richard will excuse his cousin,” said 
Lady Drewitt with a smile; but in a tone that Beres- 
ford recognised as final. “I will call for Philip 
myself,” she announced. 

“How good of you,” cried Mrs. Crisp. “I didn’t 
dare to expect it. Breakfast-parties are so rare. 


THE HEIRESS INDISPOSED 


119 


They’re wonderful. I always think we are at our 
best in the morning. They say Mr. George Lloyd 
governs the country at breakfast. Such an appetite 
I’m told — and what charming manners. So tact- 
ful with the Labour Members. I always tell Lola 
they’re more important than morals. Manners I 
mean, not the Labour Members. You’ll love Mr. 
Quelch, Lady Drewitt. He’s so gifted. So psy- 
chic. Don’t forget half-past eight. We always 
breakfast early.” 

Beresford looked at Lady Drewitt. She cer- 
tainly did not inspire confidence in her power to love 
anything or anybody as she stood there, a grim fig- 
ure determined to achieve her ends. The thought 
of Drewitt being at his best at breakfast was amus- 
ing. 

Beresford found himself wondering what Lola 
Craven was like. It would be worth a fortune, he 
decided, to marry a niece of Mrs. Crisp, no matter 
how great her attractions. He never remembered 
to have met so strange and bird-like a creature. Her 
round eyes were entirely devoid of expression, be- 
yond a glint, and her face moved as if controlled by 
steel springs. Added to this was her unrestrained 
flow of words. Whatever she might be, no one 
could withhold his sympathies from Lola Craven 
upon the possession of such an aunt. 

For the next half-hour he chatted with acquaint- 
ances among the guests, confident that Drewitt 
would get him away as soon as he decently could. 
From time to time he caught a glimpse of him still 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


120 

engaged with Mrs. Crisp, she in conversation, he in 
calling up all his reserves of good-breeding to simu- 
late interest. Presently he found himself standing 
quite close to him. 

“And now,” he heard Drewitt say, “I must take 
Richard home. He is really an invalid, and has to 
be careful of the night air. You see he set out to 
get near to Nature; but found her an extremely 
chilly damsel, and contracted pneumonia.” 

“You are quite right, Lord Drewitt,” streamed 
Mrs. Crisp. “I had a brother once who caught cold 
after bronchitis, although he always wore goloshes. 
Such splendid things. Americans call them ‘rub- 
bers.’ Always reminds me of whist. He was gone 
in a week. You can never be too careful, Mr. 
Berry,” she added, turning to Beresford. 

“And now, Mrs. Crisp, I really must take him 
away,” and leaving Mrs. Crisp still in full cry, they 
went in search of Lady Drewitt. 

As they made their adieux, Lady Drewitt once 
more stated her intention of calling for Drewitt on 
the morrow at a quarter-past eight. They passed 
out of the Belle Vue and turned down Piccadilly. 
For some time they walked in silence. 

“Death with some men is a supreme stroke of 
diplomacy,” murmured Drewitt at length, “with 
others it is an unsporting act of evasion. I have 
known cases even when it might have been described 
as an indulgence; but with Mr. Crisp it was un- 
questionably an act of self-preservation.” 

“If the fair Lola insists on Auntie living with you, 


THE HEIRESS INDISPOSED 


121 


Drew, I’m afraid you are in for a thin time,” said 
Beresford. “Possibly she could be fitted with si- 
lencers.” 

“I’m wondering,” said Drewitt, disregarding the 
remark, “what I am to say to Hoskins?” 

“What about?” 

“He’s been a good servant,” continued Drewitt 
sadly, “and if ” 

“Oh! about to-morrow,” Beresford laughed. 

“If I were to tell him suddenly and without proper 
preparation that I intend to rise to-morrow at seven, 
it would in all probability prove fatal. I am really 
greatly concerned as to how to break the news to 
him.” 

“Why not get up without him?” suggested Beres- 
ford. 

“Get up without Hoskins!” Drewitt looked at 
his cousin as if he had suggested attending a levee 
in a sweater. “Get up without Hoskins!” he re- 
peated. There was pained reproach in his voice. 

“Well, anyhow, you’re in for it.” 

“Richard, have you ever seen a man break down?” 

“Out there ” began Beresford seriously; 

then, seeing the drift of Drewitt’s remark, added, 
“Don’t be an ass, Drew.” 

“I see you haven’t, then we had better say good- 
night here;” and Drewitt hailed a passing taxi, 
whilst Beresford walked slowly back to the Ritz- 
Carlton. 


CHAPTER IX 


THE PURSUIT TO FOLKESTONE 

O N the morning following the meeting with 
Mrs. Crisp, Beresford was strolling down 
St. James’s Street, still engaged upon the 
everlasting search, and speculating as to what had 
happened at the breakfast-partv arranged on the 
previous night. 

The idea of Drewitt and his Aunt Caroline going 
out to breakfast possessed an aspect of novelty and 
humour that appealed to him. He could see Drew- 
itt finding in that meal a subject of complaint for 
months to come. In a way he pitied Hoskins. He 
could picture Drewitt keeping his man busy for 
the rest of the day in bringing fresh relays of coffee, 
and listening to his opinions on the mental capacity 
of those who allowed their gregarious instincts to 
triumph at the beginning of the day. Drewitt had 
always preached the doctrine that there should be 
no social intercourse before lunch. 

Beresford paused at the bottom of St. James’s 
Street to allow the stream of traffic to pass. Sud- 
denly his heart started pounding with almost suffo- 
cating vigour. There in a taxi that was swinging 
round the curve was the Rain-Girl — alone. Beside 


122 


THE PURSUIT TO FOLKESTONE 123 


the driver was some luggage. She was going away. 
In a flash he realised that this was his supreme op- 
portunity. 

With the wild look of a hunted man, he glanced 
about him. All the taxis were full. He could not 
hurl from one of them its occupants, and by threats 
make the driver follow that in which the Rain-Girl 
was seated. He could not ask some one to allow 
him to enter their vehicle, and instruct the driver to 
follow another taxi. They would think him mad. 
There seemed nothing for it but to follow on foot, 
to run for it. 

The picture of a man in a top hat and morning- 
coat tearing down the Mall in pursuit of a taxi was 
bound to arouse comment, he told himself ; yet there 
seemed nothing else to do. With a wild dash he 
got between two vehicles, his intention being to cut 
through St. James’s Palace and thus save a corner. 
No doubt the Rain-Girl was making for Victoria. 
What irony of fate that he should be in the one 
spot in London where a taxi was most difficult to 
obtain 1 

Just as he was about to dive to the right, a taxi 
came out of the gates by St. James’s Palace, bound 
northwards. It was empty. Dashing across to it 
he hailed the man. 

“Swing round and drive to Victoria like hell, and 
I’ll give you a sovereign.” 

Beresford jumped in as the man swung his vehi- 
cle round, amidst a perfect deluge of curses from 
a brother of the wheel, whose off mudguard he 


124 * 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


missed by a quarter of an inch. Beresford jammed 
his hat on the back of his head and, leaning out of 
the window, proceeded to urge the man to his ut- 
most speed. 

“What about the speed-limit, sir?” demanded the 
Jehu out of the corner of his mouth. 

“Damn the speed-limit,” yelled Beresford, caus- 
ing the sentry pacing up and down outside St. 
James’s Palace to stop suddenly and stare. 

“Yes, that’s all very well,” grumbled the man. 

“I’ll pay fines and everything,” said Beresford, 
“drive like hell.” 

Round the bend the man swung his cab into the 
middle of the Mall and let her rip. Beresford 
changed from the offside to the nearside, striving to 
get a glimpse of the Rain-Girl’s taxi. Apparently 
it had disappeared. Had she gone in the other di- 
rection? For a moment he hesitated. Should he 
stop the man and turn back? Yet why should she 
be coming this way if she were not going to Vic- 
toria, or at least in that direction. 

He strained his eyes and leaned far out of the 
window to see the other vehicles as they swung round 
by the Queen Victoria Memorial. Unconscious that 
he was attracting to himself the attention, not only 
of the occupants of the taxis he overtook, but of the 
passers-by, Beresford continued to watch and to de- 
spair. She had gone. Disappeared into thin air. 
What luck, what rotten luck! Probably she had 
gone away for 

Suddenly he withdrew his head and plumped him- 


THE PURSUIT TO FOLKESTONE 125 

self down on to the seat, and with his stick neatly 
broke the glass in front of him. The man looked 
round as if he had been shot. Beresford motioned 
him to ease up. There a few yards in front of him 
was the Rain-Girl’s taxi, which had been obscured 
by a large car. 

When the man had slowed down, Beresford put 
his head out of the window. 

“Follow that taxi with the girl in it,” he said. 

“Right-o, sir,” said the man with a wink. 

Beresford leaned back, conscious for the first 
time of the strain of the last few minutes. He felt 
weak and giddy, and recalled Tallis’ injunction to 
avoid anything in the nature of excitement. Avoid 
the Rain-Girl! He laughed. At last he was on 
her track. Where she went he would go. He 
watched her taxi as one hypnotised. 

As it approached Victoria Station he saw the 
driver turn and make an enquiry, then he swung out 
to the left and made for the South-Eastern Station, 
Beresford’s man keeping about twenty yards be- 
hind. As his taxi drew up, the Rain-Girl was just 
getting out of hers. Yes, there was no room for 
doubt, it was she. A porter was hurling her luggage 
on to a truck and apparently counselling haste. 
She was late, obviously. 

Immediately she had turned to follow her por- 
ter, Beresford jumped out and, handing the taxi- 
man two one-pound notes, followed her, leaving the 
man inarticulate. 

Yes, there was undoubtedly reason for haste, the 


126 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


porter was dashing along, the Rain-Girl keeping up 
with him. As she went she fumbled in her bag, ob- 
viously for her ticket. How well she walked, he 
decided. She passed through the barrier, the guard 
was looking in her direction shouting. In his hand 
was a green flag ready to be unfurled. 

Making a dash for the barrier, Beresford 
shouted something about it being a matter of life or 
death that he should catch that train. He pushed 
a note into the ticket-collector’s hand, dashed 
through and had hurled himself into a first-class 
compartment just as the train began to move. With 
a feeling of relief he noticed that the compartment 
was empty. 

As he leaned back panting, more from excitement 
than loss of breath, he was conscious of a feeling 
of triumph. His search had not been in vain. 
Somewhere in that train was the Rain-Girl. He 
would watch carefully at each station, and where 
she left the train he would leave it. What luck, 
what astounding luck! Would she recognise him? 
What was he to do if 

“Where for, sir?” 

He looked up suddenly. A guard was looking 
down at him from the door leading into the cor- 
ridor. 

“Er — er ” he began, then paused. “I 

haven’t got a ticket. I only just caught it as it was. 
I told the collector I would pay on the train.” 

“Yes, sir, where for?” asked the guard, bringing 
a receipt book out of his satchel. 


THE PURSUIT TO FOLKESTONE 127 

Where for! Where was he for? Where on 
earth was the train going to? There had been no 
time to enquire. He coujd not say that he was 
going as far as the Rain-Girl went, the man would 
in all probability have him put out at the next sta- 
tion as a lunatic. Suddenly he had an inspiration. 

“All the way,” he said casually. 

“To Paris, sir?” interrogated the man*' 

To Paris! Was she going to Paris? What on 
earth should he do in Paris with not so much as a 
tooth-brush? It was bad enough to be travelling in 
a continental train in a top hat and a morning- 
coat ♦ 

“Did you say Paris, sir?” enquired the guard. 

Beresford nodded. If she got out on the way 
he could do likewise. It was always possible to 
terminate a journey at an intermediate station. 
Suppose she were going to stay with friends at a 
small French town, or at some station between Lon- 
don and Dover, or Folkestone, whichever way the 
train went. Sometimes these trains stopped at odd 
stations, he told himself. What on earth should 
he do on a country platform in a top hat? 

“Did you get your luggage in the van all right, 
sir?^ enquired ’the guard civilly. 

His luggage? Oh, damn it! Why were people 
so infernally interested in the affairs of others? 
Why should it be assumed that because a man was 
going to Paris he required to carry luggage? All 
that was necessary could be bought there, surely? 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


128 

What on earth was he to tell this man? Then he 
decided to risk telling the truth. 

“I’m afraid I haven’t got any luggage, guard,” 
he said, looking up with a smile and handing the 
man five one-pound notes. “Keep the change,” he 
said casually. 

“Thank you, sir,” said the guard, still standing 
half in the carriage, as if Beresford’s remark re- 
quired some explanation. 

“I saw a friend coming by this train and — 
and ” he hesitated. 

“I understand, sir,” said the man without the 
flicker of a smile. “If I can help you, sir,” he added 
significantly, “perhaps you would like to take a walk 
through the train and see if you can find her.” 

“Her!” There was a vast fund of humanity in 
this guard. Beresford looked at him. 

“If you tell me what she is like, sir, perhaps I can 
find out where she’s going. I’ve got to examine all 
the tickets.” 

“What a brainy idea,” exclaimed Beresford, look- 
ing up at the man in admiration. “She’s dark, and 
she was wearing a long, browny-grey sort of coat, 
you know.” 

The man nodded. 

“And ” he hesitated. “What the devil did 

she have on her head?” 

“A hat, sir?” suggested the guard. 

Beresford looked up and laughed. “I’m blessed 
if I know what you would call it, guard. It was a 
round thing, browny-grey too, with some yellow on 


THE PURSUIT TO FOLKESTONE 129 

it like a candle-snuffer, you know, the hat I mean.” 

Again the man nodded comprehendingly. He 
was a most unusual guard, Beresford decided. 

“I’ll be back in about twenty minutes, sir,” said 
the man, and he disappeared. 

Beresford lighted a cigarette and, putting his hat 
and stick on the rack, leaned back and smoked con- 
tentedly. This was indeed a day of happenings. 
Not only had he found the Rain-Girl; but he had 
stumbled across an official who clearly ought to have 
been in the diplomatic service. The Foreign Office 
was notoriously lacking in diplomatists. Tact was 
as little likely to be found there as in a nagging wife; 
yet here was a man, an ordinary guard on the South- 
Eastern and Chatham Railway, who combined the 
discretion of a Lord Chesterfield with the tact of a 
rising politician. It promised to be a wonderful 
day. 

Presently the guard returned and, with perfect 
composure of feature, informed Beresford that there 
were two ladies answering to his description, one 
was bound for Folkestone, and the man rather 
thought that this must be the one, and the other for 
Boulogne. 

“So I had better change your ticket, sir?” he sug- 
gested. 

This man was indeed a paragon, not only of dis* 
cretion, but of economy. Beresford handed him 
the slip. 

“Make it out to the station I get out at,” he said, 
“and keep the difference for yourself.” 


130 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“Thank you, sir,” said the guard gratefully. 
“And now, would you like to see the ladies?” His 
tone was that of a landlady inquiring if a potential 
lodger would like to see the rooms. 

“See them!” repeated Beresford dully. Then he 
added quickly, “of course; yes, guard; but — 
but ” 

“I’ll point out the compartments, sir. I don’t 
think you need be seen,” he remarked, anticipating 
Beresford’s objection. 

“Right!” he said as he rose and followed the 
guard along the corridor. 

Presently he paused to let Beresford come up with 
him. “One of them’s in the third compartment of 
the next carriage at the further window,” he whis- 
pered. 

Beresford nodded, conscious that his heart was 
again pounding like a hammer. 

“It’s the Folkestone lady, sir,” added the guard. 

Again Beresford nodded and proceeded along 
the corridor. When he arrived at the third com- 
partment he was almost too nervous to look in. A 
glance sufficed to show him that it was, indeed, the 
Rain-Girl sitting at the further corner, gazing out 
at the bricks-and-mortar that was now giving place 
to green fields. 

Beresford nodded to the guard to indicate that 
the search need not be proceeded with. The man 
indicated a compartment of the same carriage in 
which the Rain-Girl sat. 


THE PURSUIT TO FOLKESTONE 131 


“Perhaps you’d like to sit here, sir,” he said. 
“I’ll fetch your hat and stick.” 

Until that moment Beresford was unconscious of 
having left them behind him; but then there was no 
need to remember anything with so able a hench- 
man. 

Once more he threw himself down into a corner- 
seat, and, when the guard had carefully, almost rew 
erently, placed his hat and stick on the rack above 
him, Beresford found himself faced with the prob- 
lem of what he was to do on arriving at Folkestone. 
Obviously the first thing was to secure a vehicle, 
preferably a taxi, and instruct the driver to follow 
the Rain-Girl. Once he had discovered where she 
was going, he could decide upon his course of action. 

At Folkestone he was one of the first to leave the 
train. He had no difficulty in securing a taxi. His 
request for the hood to be put up seemed likely to 
produce trouble, the man was obviously of the opin- 
ion that his fare was a lunatic; but the promise of 
double fare mollified the Jehu’s grumblings, and 
achieved Beresford’s object. Out of sight he sat 
and watched. Presently the Rain-Girl emerged, 
followed by a porter. She, too, chose a taxi, which 
a minute later drew out, and Beresford instructed 
his man to follow it. 

At last he felt that he had achieved his object. 
Nothing short of some unforeseen accident could 
now intervene. He hoped the tyres of his vehicle 
were all right, and that the man had an ample sup- 
ply of petrol. As the taxi turned on to the Leas, 


132 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


Beresford decided that the Rain-Girl was going to 
the Imperial. As a matter of fact there was no- 
where else for a taxi taking that direction to go. 
His own driver, taking his instructions literally, drew 
up within half a yard of the Rain-Girl’s vehicle. 
Beresford cursed him under his breath, and strove 
to squeeze himself out of sight. The man evidently 
appreciated the situation, as he showed no surprise 
at Beresford’s not alighting. 

Having opened the door of the Rain-Girl’s taxi 
and handed her out, the hall-porter lifted down her 
luggage and placed it on the ground beside him. 
He then came to Beresford’s vehicle and was about 
to open the door when Beresford leaned forward. 

“Can I have a room?” he enquired. 

“Yes, sir, I think so, if you’ll enquire at the of- 
fice.” 

“I want you to enquire for me. Perhaps you’ll 
ask the clerk to come and speak to me,” and he 
handed the man a half crown. 

“Certainly, sir,” and the man ran up the steps, 
reappearing a minute later followed by a dark lit- 
tle man, perfect in dress and deportment. 

Beresford explained his requirements. 

Yes, everything could be arranged to monsieur’s 
entire satisfaction. When would monsieur want 
the room? That night? Certainly, and would he 
take dinner? He would. A deposit? It was not 
necessary. Monsieur insisted? The man shrugged 
his shoulders to imply that he took the two one- 
pound notes merely as a concession to monsieur; 


THE PURSUIT TO FOLKESTONE 133 


as for himself, well “Back to the station? 

Oui, monsieur,” and with a word to the driver the 
taxi swung out from the drive, and Beresford once, 
more had cause to congratulate himself upon his 
luck. 

Everything seemed to come quite naturally to 
him now. He would return to London for some 
suitable clothes, be back in Folkestone that evening, 
and then 


CHAPTER X 


LORD DRfcWITT ON MARRIAGE 

W HIDST Beresford ,*was on the way to 
Folkestone with such expedition as the 
South-Eastern and Chatham Railway 
could muster, Lady Drewitt was driving back to 
Curzon Street with Lord Drewitt seated beside her. 
On his face was the look of deep depression of a 
man who has been torn from his bed some six hours 
before his normal hour for rising. Arrived at Cur- 
zon Street, Lady Drewitt marched straight to the 
morning-room and seated herself in her customary 
chair, whilst her nephew wearily dropped his un- 
happy body upon one opposite. 

“Well!” She folded her hands in her lap with 
an air of grim expectancy. 

“My dear aunt,” he said wearily; “it can never 
be well with a man who has two thousand a year 
and expensive tastes.” 

“If you depended upon yourself, you would have 
only your expensive tastes without the two thousand 
a year,” was the retort. 

Drewitt glanced at her with interest. 

“You are becoming almost epigrammatical,” he 
said with a lazy smile, the first that had broken 
through his mask of suffering that morning. 

134 


LORD DREWITT ON MARRIAGE 135 

“Well!” repeated Lady Drewitt. 

“You drag a man from his early and innocent 
slumbers long before the streets are fit to receive 
him, precipitate him into taking an unaccustomed 
meal, hurl at him an heiress and a man of voracious 
appetite, dubious linen and psychic proclivities, and 
then you say, ‘Well.’ ” Drewitt shuddered. 

“I am quite prepared to wait,” announced Lady 
Drewitt with resignation. 

“So am I, so why precipitate me into breakfast- 
parties and marriage,” protested Drewitt. “Deacon 
Quelch, what a horrible name !” he murmured. “It 
sounds like treading on an egg.” 

“I want to know what you think of Lola Cra- 
ven?” Lady Drewitt was not to be diverted from 
her object. 

“I never think of any women I have not met at 
least half a dozen times, and most women bore me 
at the third encounter. May I smoke?” he enquired 
plaintively. 

“No, you may not,” was the uncompromising 
reply. 

Drewitt smiled a smile of weary resignation. 

“I want to speak to you seriously,” said Lady 
Drewitt, with a slight indrawing of her lips. 

“My dear aunt, you are always speaking to me 
seriously,” replied Drewitt easily. “You do noth- 
ing else, and your unvarying theme is marriage. It 
gets a little monotonous, I confess,” he added with 
a sigh. 


136 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“I have my duty to consider,’’ announced Lady 
Drewitt. “You must marry.” 

“Marriage, my dear aunt, is like the tint of one’s 
pyjamas, an intensely personal affair. One person’s 
happiness is achieved by spots, another’s by a mono- 
tone, suggestive of dungaree overalls; personally 
my taste runs to stripes of delicate tints. You, on 
your part, may prefer ” 

“Don’t be indelicate, Drewitt. I was talking 
about Miss Craven, not — not night-wear. There is 
the title ” 

“There is, indeed,” agreed Drewitt mournfully. 
“I am never permitted to forget it. If I go to a 
hotel it means a hundred per cent, on the bill, and 
if I dine at a restaurant, it means half-a-crown in- 
stead of a shilling to the man who takes my hat, 
with at least five shillings to the waiter. No won- 
der democracy is abroad.” 

“You cannot complain of her appearance,” an- 
nounced Lady Drewitt. 

“I never have,” was the reply. “Democracy is 
the only hope of the House of Lords. It ” 

“I was referring to Miss Craven,” said Lady 
Drewitt severely. “Are you going to marry her?” 

“Was I expected to propose at breakfast?” he 
asked innocently. 

“Do you like her?” Lady Drewitt had a habit 
of ignoring her nephew’s flippancy. At first she had 
endeavoured to combat it; but the discovery that 
she was invariably discomfited had caused her to 
change her tactics. 


LORD DREWITT ON MARRIAGE 137 

“Money inverts the natural order of things. It 
is the woman who selects, just as with the birds of 
the air,” he sighed dolefully; “besides, Miss Craven 
seemed far more interested in Mr. Quelch than in 
me. You see I am not psychic, merely rheumatic, 
probably the legacy of the early Drewitts, who glo- 
ried and drank deep of their own productions.” 

“Interested in that man!” Lady Drewitt seemed 
to sit a little more upright in her chair. There was 
surprise in her tone. 

“That was the impression I received.” 

For a few minutes Lady Drewitt seemed to pon- 
der. 

“It’s your air of indifference,” she announced at 
length. 

“My dear aunt, can you imagine me making love? 
Can you see me spreading my handkerchief upon 
the carpet, going down on one knee, striking an at- 
titude, and at the same time the left portion of my 
upper anatomy, and declaring that life holds noth- 
ing for me if the beloved does not vouchsafe to me 
the honey of her lips and the balance at her bank?” 

“Don’t be a fool, Drewitt.” 

“No, it’s not that,” said Drewitt, “the fault lies 
elsewhere. I’m afraid I could never seriously con- 
template marrying Miss Craven for her money,” he 
continued gravely. “She has personality and 
charm; they always command my respect.” 

“Then marry her for her personality and charm,” 
said Lady Drewitt sarcastically. 

“There is of course that,” he said rising; “but 


138 THE RAIN-GIRL 

somehow I think that when Lola Craven marries, it 
will be for love.” 

“Fiddlesticks,” snapped Lady Drewitt. 

“I quite agree, my dear aunt, the terms are 
synonymous; but young women are extremely self- 
willed in these matters. I’m inclined to attribute it 
to beauty-competitions and insufficient clothing.” 

“Then what are you going to do?” demanded 
Lady Drewitt, rising with a rustle of silk and a ruf- 
fled temper. 

“I scarcely know,” was the reply. “You see, 
aunt,” this with an engaging smile, “you have a ten- 
dency to be precipitate. I am not Dante, nor is Miss 
Craven Beatrice,” and with this Drewitt took his de- 
parture, leaving Lady Drewitt puzzled as to his 
meaning. 

Half an hour later he was seated in his favourite 
chair, smoking a cigarette. When Lord Drewitt 
found that the burden of life oppressed him, he in- 
variably returned to his flat and ordered Hoskins to 
make coffee. 

“Hoskins,” he remarked, as his man placed the 
coffee before him, “I often wonder why you don’t 
demand half my income.” 

“Half your income, my lord!” exclaimed Hoskins, 
in surprise, looking too cherubic and beneficent to 
demand anything. He was a round-faced, fresh- 
coloured, chubby little man, with the expression of 
a happy boy. 

“Because you know that I should have to give it 
to you. Without your coffee, Hoskins, I could 


LORD DREWITT ON MARRIAGE 139 

never continue the unequal struggle with existence.” 

“I’m quite satisfied, my lord, thank you,” said 
Hoskins, with customary literalness. 

Lord Drewitt replaced his cup and, turning, sur- 
veyed his servant with deliberation. 

“With everything, Hoskins?” he enquired in- 
credulously. 

“Yes, my lord, I think so.” 

“How weird,” exclaimed Lord Drewitt. “You 
had better join a trade-union as a corrective. It’s 
not natural. It’s infernally unnatural, and it may 
lead to — to anything. From wife-murder to — 


“But I’m not married, my lord,” said Hoskins 
hurriedly. 

“I didn’t say whose wife,” said Lord Drewitt ir- 
ritably. “God knows there are enough wives 
about.” 

“Yes, my lord.” 

“Suppose I were to get married,” Lord Drewitt 
helped himself to another cigarette, which he lighted 
with great deliberation. 

“Yes, my lord.” 

“Don’t say ‘Yes, my lord’ in that colourless sort 
of voice, man, as if you didn’t care.” 

“I beg pardon, my lord,” said Hoskins contritely. 

“Suppose I were to get married, what would you 
do?” Lord Drewitt leaned back with the air of a 
man who has given utterance to the worst that can 
befall him. 

“If your lordship had no further need for my 


140 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


services,” he began, ‘‘I suppose I should have 
to ” 

“Need for your services, I should want coffee 
every fifteen minutes of the day and night. No, by 
Jovel like the Emperor Charles and his chickens, 
I’d have it prepared every five minutes. You re- 
gard marriage far too lightly, Hoskins.” 

“I hope not, my lord,” this with something ap- 
proaching feeling in his voice. 

“That’s better, that sounds more human. Now, 
suppose there were a Lady Drewitt in this flat. She 
would be sure to want you to do her hair or some- 
thing at the very moment I required you.” 

“Do her hair, my lord!” he exclaimed anxiously. 

“Yes, thin ginger hair, it would be, or else mani- 
cure her spatulated finger nails, or lace her stays, 
or clean her shoes. You don’t seem to understand. 
There’s a terrible destiny brooding over this flat.” 

Instinctively Hoskins looked up at the ceiling. 

“You and I rub along very well together, Hos- 
kins, thanks to your coffee and my equable temper; 
but a Lady Drewitt would play the very devil with 
us. Don’t you realise that?” 

“Now that you come to mention it, my lord, I’m 
afraid that it might be — might be a little difficult.” 

“A little difficult,” Lord Drewitt sighed. “It’s 
a deadly menace. Now I want you to do something 
for me.” 

“Yes, my lord.” 

“If at any time you hear that I have become en- 
gaged to be married,” Lord Drewitt spoke slowly 


LORD DREWITT ON MARRIAGE 141 

and impressively, “I want you to poison my coffee.” 

“Poison your coffee, my lord!” he cried, startled 
out of his habitual calm. 

“Not at once,” Lord Drewitt hastened to add. 
“Not immediately you hear the news, because bet- 
ter councils might subsequently prevail; but say on 
the wedding-morning, just as you are handing me my 
lavender trousers. It would be so effective in the 
newspapers. ‘The third Lord Drewitt dies just as 
he is about to assume his wedding-trousers.’ ‘As- 
sume’ would sound better than ‘put on.’ One puts 
on ordinary bags, Hoskins; but one ‘assumes’ wed- 
ding-garments.” 

“But lavender trousers are not — not worn now, 
my lord.” 

Lord Drewitt looked up reproachfully. 

“Lavender trousers are always worn. They are 
Victorian, and appear in every novel and play that 
ever was written, or ever will be written. Good 
heavens ! how are you to know that it’s a man’s 
wedding-day unless he indicates it by his extremities? 
No really nice girl would feel that she was married 
without lavender trousers. They are conventional, 
imperative, de rigueur. Women have protested 
against various parts of the marriage service; but 
never against lavender trousers. I’m quite con- 
vinced that this convention is responsible for the lim- 
ited number of full-dress Scottish marriages. There 
is not the same glamour about lavender kilts. Why, 
I cannot conceive.” 

Lord Drewitt handed his cup to Hoskins. 


142 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“You promise to poison me then,” he said, look- 
ing up appealingly, “you promise on — on your hope 
of an allotment?” 

“I’ll think it over, my lord.” 

“A broken reed,” cried Lord Drewitt, as he sank 
back in his chair. “Just like the rest, you are a 
broken reed.” He paused to light a cigarette. 
“Have you ever thought of marriage, Hoskins?” 
he inquired. 

“No, my lord,” was the hesitating reply, “that is,, 
not seriously.” 

“Ah! you are the child of your generation. Your 
tendency is to think lightly of serious things. Do 
you know the meaning of love, honour and obey?” 

“I— er— think ” 

“Showing conclusively that you don’t,” continued 
Lord Drewitt. “A wife loves her freedom; her 
husband honours her cheques; and she obeys the dic- 
tates of fashion. Hoskins, I warn you against mar- 
rying.” 

“Thank you, my lord.” 

Lord Drewitt looked at him sharply; but his 
cherubic expression was devoid of any suggestion 
of guile. 

“There is no necessity for you to marry,” Lord 
Drewitt continued. “There is no title, the world 
will go round just as well without any little Hos- 
kinses, and you have enough for your immediate 
needs.” 

“Thanks to you, my lord, I have,” he said grate- 
fully. 


LORD DREWITT ON MARRIAGE 143 


“Then avoid women, at least avoid marrying 
them,” he added as an afterthought. 

Hoskins looked uncomfortable and fidgeted with 
his feet. 

“I recognise the signs, Hoskins. You are keep- 
ing company with some young female. Now, don’t 
deny it.” 

He did not deny it; but his fresh-coloured face 
took on a deeper hue. 

“I can see,” remarked Lord Drewitt with a sigh, 
“that my coffee is threatened from two different 
angles: your weakness about women, and Lady 
Drewitt’s determination about the title. Tell me 
about it, Hoskins. I can bear it,” he said w r earily. 

“It was only in case — in case Well, my 

lord, you have so often talked about getting mar- 
ried that I thought ” 

Drewitt looked at him pityingly. “So that if I 
do a thing that all the great minds of the world are 
agreed is damn silly, you must go and do the same 
thing.” 

“Well, my lord, it w r ould make — it would make a 
considerable difference,” pleaded Hoskins. 

“It would,” agreed Lord Drewitt, “a consider- 
able difference. Now, leave me. I’m not at home 
to anybody. No, I shall not require lunch. Say 
that I am in a mood of Socratic contemplation.” 

“Yes, my lord,” said the man obediently as he 
left the room. 

When some hours later Beresford entered, Drew- 


144 THE RAIN-GIRL 

itt was still seated in his chair, idly turning the leaves 
of a book. 

“Behold, my dear Richard,” he said, gazing up 
lazily, “the two most unfortunate men in London. 
You faced by poverty, I by marriage. The great 
Negative and Affirmative of contemporary exist- 
ence.” 

Beresford dropped into a chair and helped him- 
self to a cigarette from the box on the table, which 
he proceeded to light. 

“I’m just off to Folkestone,” he said casually, as 
he blew out the match and placed it on the ash-tray 
beside him. 

Drewitt screwed his glass into his eye, and exam- 
ined his cousin’s morning clothes and silk hat with 
deliberate intentness. 

“Sartorial originality, Richard, is bound to win 
in the end,” he remarked. “I would suggest the 
addition of dust-coat and race-glasses.” 

Beresford laughed. “Oh,” he said casually, “of 
course, I shall run in and change first.” 

“It must be delightful to be a creature of im- 
pulse,” said Drewitt; “and how did you find out 
that she was staying at Folkestone?” 

Beresford stared at him blankly. “Who?” he 
cried. 

“What is the present state of your finances, Rich- 
ard?” enquired Drewitt, ignoring the question. 

“Oh, about a hundred pounds.” 

Drewitt nodded meditatively. 

“I should propose whilst you still have some 


LORD DREWITT ON MARRIAGE 145 

worldly goods with which to endow her,” he re- 
marked casually. 

“You are almost as bad as Aunt Caroline,” said 
Beresford. “You’re always thinking of the mor- 
row. For my part I’m going to have a good time 

so long as the funds last, and after that ” he 

shrugged his shoulders. 

“It’s always a mistake to live to the extent of our 
resources,” remarked Drewitt casually. 

“I’ve never regarded you as an economist.” 

“That, my dear Richard, is because you always 
take everything so literally. To you economy 
means the saving of money.” 

“And to you?” 

“It might mean anything, from early morning tea 
to treasure in heaven.” 

“What the deuce are you driving at?” 

“If a man takes everything the world has to 
offer,” continued Drewitt evenly, “he will sooner or 
later find himself morally bankrupt, with nothing 
to look forward to as a comfort for his old age. 
Now I have reserved two things for my euthanasia, 
early morning tea and marriage.” 

“Marriage?” exclaimed Beresford. 

“I was about to add, Richard, when you rudely 
interrupted me, thus I have before me a comfort 
and an experience. I have forgone early morning 
tea all my life, taking coffee instead, which I prefer. 
I would have done the same with turtle soup, only I 
thought of it too late; personally I regard turtle 
soup as much over-rated.” 


146 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“And marriage?” queried Beresford. 

“Most men marry for a woman to live with, I 
shall marry for a woman to die with. That re- 
minds me, this morning I met Lola Craven.” 

“I wanted to know how you got on.” 

“You come then to gloat over a fellow-creature’s 
misery,” said Drewitt reproachfully. 

Beresford laughed, he was in a mood to laugh at 
anything. 

“To tear a man from his natural environment, 
Richard, shows both brutality and a sad lack of half- 
tones. I am at my best when taking coffee from 
the hand of the admirable Hoskins; but to tear me 
from my proper setting six hours before what our 
cousins would call ‘the scheduled time,’ and plunge 
me into the unaccustomed experience of breakfast 
is an outrage, nothing less.” 

“Poor old Drew,” laughed Beresford. 

“Add to it Mr. Deacon Quelch, and you reach a 
degree of frightfulness, Richard, that would terrify 
the most hardened Hun. I wonder why I was given 
Aunt Caroline?” he mused. 

“What was she like?” enquired Beresford. 

“The same as always, wise and worldly.” 

“I mean the girl.” 

“Lola Craven,” said Drewitt deliberately, “is a 
girl that no man with any self-respect would ever 
marry for her money.” 

“Is she ?” began Beresford. 

“Freckles, physical inequalities and general 
lumpiness,” continued Drewitt, ignoring the half- 


LORD DREWITT ON MARRIAGE 147 


uttered question, “a man may marry because of what 
is behind them; but not a girl like Lola Craven. 
You must meet her, Richard, also Mr. Deacon 
Quelch. He is unique, from the dubiety of his linen 
to the voracity of his appetite.” 

“I must push off,” said Beresford, rising. “By 
the way, don’t tell Aunt Caroline my address.” 

“Better not give it to me,” said Drewitt lazily, 
extending a hand. “But knowing your ingenuous 
character as I do, Richard, I assume that it will be 
the most expensive hotel in the place.” 


CHAPTER XI 


THE MEETING WITH THE RAIN-GIRL 
I 

A S Beresford entered the dining-room of the 
Imperial at Folkestone, he was conscious 
that for him the whole world had changed. 
To-night he would meet the Rain-Girl again. His 
heart was hammering against his ribs, his throat 
seemed to contract and his muscles relax. There 
was a curious buzzing in his ears. Did people feel 
like that when they were about to faint? What a 
sensation it would create if he were suddenly to col- 
lapse. Tallis had warned him against excitement. 

The approach of the maitre d’hotel steadied him 
a little. Beresford murmured his name and was led 
to a small table laid for one — he had stipulated for 
a table to himself. With a supreme effort he took 
himself in hand and looked round the room. Heav- 
ens! what luck. There she was sitting at the next 
table, alone. He was thankful that her back was 
towards him. 

He ordered a cocktail to steady his nerves, con- 
scious that his hands were trembling with excitement. 
He noticed that the other diners had almost finished 
148 


THE MEETING WITH THE RAIN-GIRL 149 

their meal. The train had been late, and he had 
taken his time to dress. It was nearly nine o’clock. 

He wished the buzzing in his ears would stop, and 
that his heart would not behave quite so ridiculously. 
That bout of pneumonia had obviously taken it out 
of him. Would the cocktail never come? 

With thankfulness he saw the waiter approach-' 
ing. Suddenly the man started to whirl round, 
three or four tables seemed to join in. Had the 
lights gone mad, the buzzing in his ears, the 

Beresford opened his eyes wearily and looked 
about him. “The Rain-Girl,” he murmured and, 
closing them again, he sighed his content. 

“He’s delirious, poor fellow,” some one mur- 
mured. 

“Shall I have him taken to his room, madam?” 
enquired the maitre d } hotel. 

“No,” said the Rain-Girl decisively. “Let him 
remain here, and ask the others to go to their 
places.” 

Reluctantly the crowd of diners retreated to the 
background. Some returned to their tables, others, 
too curious to be denied, stood watching Beresford’s 
recumbent form as he lay on the dining-room floor, 
his head pillowed on a hassock, the Rain-Girl kneel- 
ing beside him. 

Presently he opened his eyes again and smiled 
up at her. She returned the smile. 

“What have they been doing?” he asked faintly, 


150 THE RAIN-GIRL 

as he caught sight of the ends of his tie, which had 
been undone. 

“You fainted,” said the girl gently. “Now lie 
quite still and you’ll feel better presently.” 

“I remember,” he said, “I ” 

“You mustn’t talk,” she said with a business-like 
air of authority. 

“I shall be all right in a minute,” he said. “Tallis 
said I mustn’t get excited. You know, I got pneu- 
monia that day and — and I was ill for a long time. 
That is why I didn’t turn up to breakfast,” and his 
voice trailed off faintly. 

“Will you please stand back there?” he heard the 
Rain-Girl say to several people who had ap- 
proached; then as he opened his eyes again she bent 
down and whispered, “Will you tell me your name? 
It’s — it’s a little awkward.” 

“Yes, isn’t it?” he said quizzically. “Beresford, 
Richard Beresford.” 

She nodded. “And now,” she said, “I think you 
might have a little of this brandy,” and with that she 
lifted a glass to his lips. 

He drank and a few seconds later, with a deep 
sigh, raised himself to a sitting posture. 

“I’m — I’m most awfully sorry,” he said, looking 
from the girl to a little group of guests a few yards 
away. 

“You had better not talk,” she said as she beck- 
oned to two of the waiters. “Lift Mr. Beresford 
on to his chair,” she said; then she added, turning 


THE MEETING WITH THE RAIN-GIRL 151 

to him, “What a strange meeting. I had no idea 
you were staying here.” 

Several of the other guests now approached. 

“I only arrived to-night,” he said, quick to grasp 
her meaning. “I’m just getting over pneumonia,” 
he added for the benefit of the other guests. 
“When did you come?” 

He was rapidly regaining control of his faculties. 

“This morning,” she replied. 

It was obvious that the little group of guests and 
waiters were drinking in this short conversation, 
quite unconscious that it was for their especial 
benefit. 

“And now,” said the girl, “I should advise you 
to go to bed. I will order something to be sent to 
your room.” 

“But ” began Beresford weakly. 

“When the nurse commands obedience is best,” 
she smiled. 

With murmured thanks Beresford rose and, as- 
sisted by the maitre d’hotel , walked slowly from the 
dining-room out into the vestibule, where several 
groups of guests were standing discussing the inci- 
dent. 

That night he spent in wakefulness. For hours 
he lay tossing restlessly. Hitherto his one object 
had been the finding of the Rain-Girl. He had been 
like Japheth in search of a father. Had Japheth 
ever thought that the success of his undertaking 
might involve him in embarrassment? What had 


152 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


he done with his father when he found him? Did 
he actually find him? 

In spite of the feeling of exhilaration at the suc- 
cessful issue of his quest, he was conscious that he 
had come to a mile-stone, and that there was no 
sign-post to indicate his future course. Hitherto he 
had given no thought to the future, had never seemed 
to be able to see beyond the second meeting with the 
Rain-Girl. Now he found his mind a seething 
whirl of questions. Where was it all going to end, 
and what was he to do when his money was ex- 
hausted? He reproached himself as an impulsive 
fool for — for — oh, everything. What was his ob- 
ject? The whole thing was nothing short of a mid- 
summer-madness. What would Tallis say? What 
would Aunt Caroline think, or say, if she knew? 
They were not imbued with the same reticence as 
Drewitt. They would comment, the one laugh- 
ingly, the other with the caustic worldliness of a 
Mrs. Grundy. 

Still he had met the Rain-Girl, and she had seemed 
to pick up the thread where they had left it in the 
smoking-room of “The Two Dragons.” At least 
he had before him further meetings. There was 

that compensation, unless What if she were to 

leave early in the morning? What if he should be ill 
again? What a fool he had been not to give instruc- 
tions as to when he was to be called. Surely she 
would not go without assuring herself that he was 
better. 

Then with a strange revulsion of feeling he 


THE MEETING WITH THE RAIN-GIRL 153 


cursed himself for being such a fool as to faint. He 
had never fainted before. It was all her fault. 

This girl seemed fated to upset everything he 
planned. What right had she to come into his life 
at so psychological a moment as the first day of his 
freedom? He had given months to the thought of 
cutting himself adrift from old ties and restraints. 
Then in a flash she had destroyed everything — she 
and the weather. The open road and the wayside 
hedge no longer beckoned to him. The thought of 
hour after idle hour spent lying on his back listening 
to the lark had now passed like an opium vision. 
The smell of the earth, the heat of the sun and the 
lazily drifting clouds, all seemed to belong to some- 
thing beyond him, something far away. He was— 
yes, he must be light-headed. 

It was nearly five o’clock when eventually he fell 
asleep and dreamed that he had just arrived at 
Folkestone and discovered Lord Drewitt and the 
Rain-Girl paddling. 


2 

The next morning Beresford was awakened by a 
feeling that some one was looking at him. He 
opened his eyes to find the chambermaid gazing 
sympathetically down upon him. 

“Are you feeling better, sir?” she enquired solicit- 
ously as he opened his eyes. 

“Yes, thank you,” he replied, then memory flood- 


154 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


ing back upon him: “What’s the time?” he de- 
manded. 

“It’s just past eleven, sir.” 

“What?” cried Beresford, starting up in bed, 
only restrained from throwing his legs out by the 
girl’s presence. 

“Just past eleven, sir,” repeated the girl, gazing 
at him with all the tenderness of a woman for an 
invalid, especially a good-looking man invalid. 

“Good heavens ! Here, clear out, my good girl,” 
he cried. “I must get up.” 

“You’ll find the bath-room the second door on 
the right, sir,” she said. “I’ve brought your shaving 
water,” and with that she disappeared. Beresford 
threw himself out of bed, tore on his bath-robe and, 
snatching up his sponge and towels, made a dash 
for the corridor. Never had he bathed with such 
expedition as on that morning. 

Returning to his own room he found waiting at 
the door a little dark man in a black frock-coat. 

“I hope you’re feeling better this morning, sir,” 
he said, with a smile that radiated tact and under- 
standing. “I’m the manager.” 

“Oh I I’m all right again now, thank you,” said 
Beresford, with a laugh as he entered the room. 
“Come in,” and the manager followed him. “It’s 
very kind of you to enquire,” he continued, “and I 
feel I owe you an apology for the disturbance I 
created last night in the dining-room.” 

“Not at all, sir,” said the manager sympatheti- 


THE MEETING WITH THE RAIN-GIRL 155 


cally, “we were all very sorry indeed that you should 
be ill.” 

“I shan’t do it again,” said Beresford confidently. 
“I had pneumonia some time back, and the doctor 
told me to take care, and — and — well, I had rather 
a strenuous day yesterday.” 

“If you would like your meals served in your 
room ” began the manager. 

“No, thanks, I’m all right now,” and with that 
the manager took his bowing departure, leaving 
Beresford greatly impressed by the courteous meth- 
ods adopted by the management of the Imperial. 

With swift decisive strokes he shaved, all the 
time the razor seeming to keep time to the unending 
question, “Has she gone?” He prayed that he 
might not cut himself. He preferred to meet her 
unadorned by sticking-plaster. 

He was engaged in brushing his hair when a 
knock sounded at the door. 

“Come in,” he cried. 

A moment after a waiter entered with a breakfast- 
tray. Beresford stared at him. 

“I didn’t order breakfast in my room,” he said. 

The man looked at him surprised. 

“No, sir?” he interrogated. “I was instructed 
to bring it up.” 

“By whom?” 

“By Mr. Byles, sir, the maitre d’hotel .” 

“I didn’t order it,” said Beresford. “Anyhow, 
it’s rather a good idea,” he added, conscious that he 
was feeling very hungry; he had eaten nothing since 


156 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


the previous morning’s breakfast, except a lightly 
boiled sole that the Rain-Girl had caused to be sent 
to his room. 

By Jove, that was why he had fainted! Suddenly 
he remembered that he had gone the whole day 
without food. With a nod he dismissed the man 
and, a moment later, lifted the covers from the two 
dishes and gazed down at them. In one were boiled 
fillets of sole and in the other an omelette. 

“It’s the Rain-Girl for a dollar,” he cried joy- 
fully and, drawing up a chair, he proceeded to eat 
with the appetite of a man who has eaten practically 
nothing for twenty-four hours. 

The food was good, the tea was stimulating, and 
once more life had become a thing of crimson and 
of gold. It was strange, he argued, how a good 
meal changed one’s mental outlook, and now — 
what? He paused as he lighted a cigarette. What 
was he to say when he met her? With a shrug of his 
shoulders he walked towards the lift. 

“Are you better?” 

Beresford turned swiftly on his heel. It was the 
Rain-Girl in a white linen frock and a panama hat. 
He was just crossing the hall wondering where he 
should begin his search, when she had appeared 
from apparently nowhere. 

“Thanks to you; I am ’quite well again.” Then 
with inspiration he added, “I’m as right as rain.” 

She smiled. “Did ” he hesitated for a moment, 

“did you order my breakfast?” 

She nodded. 


THE MEETING WITH THE RAIN-GIRL 157 

“I knew it must be you,” he said. “Thank you 
so much for all you have done,” then he added 
hastily, “I’m better; but I don’t think I’m quite well 
enough to dispense with the services of a nurse.” 

She flashed him a look from under her lashes, 
then she laughed, that same gurgling little laugh that 
had so fascinated him in the smoking-room of “The 
Two Dragons.” 

“Do you think I’m strong enough to be taken for 
a walk?” he asked, “or had I better have a bath- 
chair? Of course, I should gain more sympathy in 
a bath-chair, with you walking beside it,” he added 
whimsically. 

“But I’m not going to walk beside your bath- 
chair,” she said, obviously a little puzzled at his 
mood. 

“Then I’m afraid it will have to be a walk. 
Please continue your good work,” he added as he 
saw her hesitate. “I want to explain things to you 
and — and I promise I won’t be a nuisance if you 
will give me half an hour.” 

“I wasn’t thinking of your being a nuisance,” she 
said, “only that ” she hesitated. 

“But you do,” said Beresford. 

“Do what?” she enquired, looking up at him in 
surprise. 

“Know me.” 

“How clever of you to anticipate my thoughts.” 

“That’s always a woman’s thought when she hesi- 
tates on the brink of the unconventional.” 


158 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“Well, you may come Into the garden and sit 
down,” she said leading the way. 

Beresford followed, conscious that every head in 
sight, male and female, was turned as she passed. 
Entering the hotel gardens, she led the way to a 
seat shaded by a large elm. For several minutes 
they sat silent. At the other side of the lawn two 
girls and a man were playing an indolent game of 
croquet. The tap-tap of the balls seemed to add to 
the languor of the day. Beresford sighed his con- 
tent. Of course it was all a dream ; but even from a 
dream it was possible to extract a passing pleasure. 

“You know I got pneumonia,” he said casually, 
conscious that as a conversational opening it bor- 
dered on the abrupt. 

“Please tell me,” she said, turning towards him. 
“I’m so sorry.” 

He then explained how his stay at “The Two 
Dragons” had been protracted from a single night 
into six weeks. He told of Tallis and the landlord, 
touched on the grim irony of fate and finally 
added — 

“But what worried me most was that you should 
think I had ” then he stopped suddenly, con- 

scious of his tactlessness in referring to the implied 
appointment made that evening in the smoking- 
room. 

“I wondered what had happened,” she said, look- 
ing straight in front of her. “I never thought — 
that you might be ill.” 

“Then you must have thought I had forgotten.” 


THE MEETING WITH THE RAIN-GIRL 159 

“But why not?” 

“I’m sorry,” he said regretfully. 

“It does seem rather horrid of me — now,” she 
admitted, slightly stressing the word “now,” “but 
I didn’t leave ‘The Two Dragons’ till nearly eleven 
and ” 

“Thank you,” said Beresford simply. 

“Why did you give up your tramp?” she enquired 
irrelevantly. 

“Why did you give up yours?” he countered. 

“I had to go to London.” 

“So did I.” 

“But I thought you had left London for good,” 
she persisted. 

“So did I.” 

“Yet ” she paused. 

“I was tramping exactly one day,” he said, filling 
in the blank. 

She nodded; but her eyes continued to interrogate 
him. 

“Then I had to return to London,” he repeated. 

“I had arranged to be in London on May 5th,” 
she volunteered. 

“And I had arranged never to be in London 
again.” He smiled at her obvious bewilderment. 

“But if you had arranged never to be in London 
again, why ?” 

“Did I return?” he finished the sentence for her. 

Again she nodded. 

“Have you never done anything that you cannot 
explain to yourself?” he questioned. 


160 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“I’m afraid I’m always doing those sort of 
things,” she admitted with a laugh. 

“Well, that’s why I came to London, something 
drew me back again.” 

“How strange,” she said seriously. 

“Not at all. Some day perhaps I’ll tell you what 
it was.” 

He longed to enquire why she was in Folkestone 
alone, instead he asked — 

“How did you find the Ritz-Carlton?” 

“Oh, at the last moment auntie decided that she 
liked the Belle Vue better, so we went there.” 

Beresford felt that he wanted to laugh. The 
grim humour of the situation appealed to him. 
Here had he been living expensively at the Ritz- 
Carlton for the sole purpose of meeting the Rain- 
Girl, while she had gone to another hotel not a hun- 
dred yards distant. He had considerably curtailed 
the period of his adventure by the reckless expendi- 
ture of his limited resources, and all in vain. Surely 
Fate was a mistress of irony. 

“It — it was a little embarrassing last night,” she 
said hesitatingly. 

“I’ve never fainted before,” he said a little shame- 
facedly. “I’m so sorry, and you were most awfully 
kind.” 

“You see I’ve been a nurse, a V.A.D.” 

“If you had not been there they would probably 
have poured the soup tureen over me, or cut off my 
trousers at the knee, or some such thing as that. 


THE MEETING WITH THE RAIN-GIRL 161 


People have a tendency to do the most insane things 
on such occasions.” 

“I didn’t know what had happened,” she said, 
“until I felt my chair being pulled from under me.” 

“Pulled from under you 1” 

“Yes, you’d got hold of the leg of my chair, and 
seemed determined to pull me down on top of you.” 
Then suddenly she laughed. “It was really very 
funny. One man brought a soda-water syphon, and 
somebody suggested burning feathers under youf 
nose, as if everybody carried a bunch of feathers 
about with them to — to ” and again she laughed. 

“Don’t you think we might have a little walk,” he 
suggested. “Gentle exercise is good for the debili- 
tated. I’ll promise not to faint.” 

She turned and looked at him critically. 

“And,” he continued, “if I do, I won’t bring you 
to earth with me.” 

“Very well,” she said rising; “on those conditions 
I’ll agree.” 

They turned out on to the Leas and walked slowly 
in the direction of Sandgate. Beresford inhaled 
deeply the warm air, fresh with the scent of the sea. 
Never in his life had he felt so at peace with the 
world as on this dream-morning; for, of course, it 
was all a dream. Was the Rain-Girl really walking 
with him, even in a dream? He turned to assure 
himself of the fact, and found her looking up at him. 
Involuntarily he smiled and saw the answering smile 
in her eyes. 

“I was thinking,” she said. 


162 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“So was I.” 

“I was thinking,” she continued, “that you are 
either the most indifferent or the most incurious man 
I have ever met.’’ 

“Am I? Perhaps I am,” he added, “indifferent to 
all except the present, incurious as to everything 
beyond the range of my vision.” 

“The proper thing,” she said after a further 
period of silence, “was to ask why. When a woman 
accuses a man of not being curious, it always means 
that she wants to tell him something.” 

“Does it?” 

She nodded. Her nod seemed to establish an inti- 
macy between them. 

“Then will you please tell me something?” 

“You make things so — so difficult,” she said 
crinkling her brows and looking straight before her. 
“You don’t avail yourself of conversational open- 
ings.” She turned and smiled up at him. 

“Please why am I the most commonplace and 
ordinary of men?” he enquired. 

“I didn’t say that,” she laughed. “I said you 
were either the most indifferent or most incurious 
of men.” 

“Please tell me why?” 

“Well,” she replied, “you have never expressed 
the least curiosity as to who I am.” 

“But you’re the Rain-Girl.” He held his breath, 
wondering how she would receive the reference to 
the name he had given her. 

A little gurgling laugh reassured him. 


THE MEETING WITH THE RAIN-GIRL 163 

“But my godfathers and godmothers do not know 

me as ” she hesitated slightly, “as the Rain- 

Girl.” 

“Thanks to the beneficent decrees of Providence, 
our godfathers and godmothers never know us as we 
are.” 

She nodded agreement. 

“If you choose that I shall know who you are you 
will tell me.” 

“Then you don’t know my name?” She looked 
up straight into his eyes. 

“Not the G.G. name.” 

“The G.G. name?” 

“The godfathers’ and godmothers’,” he explained. 

Again she laughed, seemingly amused at the con- 
traction. 

“Well, my name is ■” she began, then hesi- 

tated. 

“Yes,” said Beresford. 

“Lola Craven.” 

“Lola Craven!” He stopped abruptly and stood 
looking down at her, the picture of blank astonish- 
ment. “Good Lord!” he ejaculated. 

“Why, what’s the matter?” she enquired, looking 
at him in wide-eyed surprise. 

Then he laughed, knowing now beyond all doubt 
that it was a dream. 

“Shall we sit down?” he said at length. 

They walked a few steps to a seat overlooking 
the sea and sat down. Surely this was the craziest 
of crazy worlds, he decided. Here was the Rain- 


164 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


Girl turning into Lola Craven. An heiress on a 
gate. What would Drewitt say? Of all the weird, 
fantastical, incomprehensible 

“I beg your pardon.” Suddenly he became con- 
scious that she was looking at him as if waiting for 
some explanation. “You see I’ve heard a lot about 
you.” 

“About me?” 

“Yes. Lady Drewitt is my aunt, and Drew, that 
is, Lord Drewitt, is my cousin.” 

“Ooooooh!” she said slowly, surprised in turn. 

“I wonder if that is why the manager came up 
to ask how I was,” he said half to himself. 

“You wonder if what was why?” she asked, 
apparently unconscious of any violence to syntax. 

“Well, he certainly wouldn’t have been interested 
in me for my own sake ; but as a fr an acquain- 

tance,” he corrected, “of Miss Craven, he might 

” He stopped suddenly as if conscious of a 

change in his companion. A shadow seemed to 
pass over her face. 

“I wish ” 

“Please just go on being the Rain-Girl, will you?” 
he asked simply. 

She looked up, smiled a little sadly, and then 
nodded. 

“I think we had better be getting back,” she said, 
and there was something in her tone that caused 
Beresford to curse wealth, heiresses, convention and 
all that went to build up the fabric of civilisation 
and progress. 


CHAPTER XII 


THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES 

I 

O N returning from their walk on the Leas, 
Lola had gone straight to her room, and 
had not entered the dining-room until 
Beresford was half-way through lunch. The sudden 
change in her manner had puzzled him; but he was 
determined that she should have no cause to feel 
that he was taking advantage of what, after all, was 
a chance acquaintance. 

His own meal finished, he left the dining-room, 
and a few minutes later the hotel. That afternoon 
he spent in strolling about the town, taking the op- 
portunity of ordering some red roses for Lola. 
Returning about six he went to his room, feeling 
unaccountably tired. Lying down he slept until 
nearly eight o’clock, and again he was late at dinner. 
When half-way through his meal Lola had risen and, 
bowing to him with a friendly little smile, had left 
the dining-room and he saw her no more that night. 
He noticed that she was not wearing any flowers. 

Later on in the smoking-room a number of men 
approached, enquiring if he were better. He was 
165 


166 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


a little surprised at this solicitude, and also at the 
friendliness they manifested. He was not altogether 
pleased that his mishap should be regarded as a con- 
versational opening. 

He recalled the manager’s solicitude that morn- 
ing, and it suddenly dawned upon him that his 
acquaintance with Lola Craven was responsible for 
his present importance. From various scraps of 
conversation he overheard, it was obvious that the 
arrival at Folkestone of the heiress whom the illus- 
trated papers had combined to make famous, was a 
social event of the first magnitude and importance. 

He noticed that the other guests would cease their 
conversation to gaze at her as she passed. Her 
entry into the dining-room caused a hush in the hum 
of conversation. Mr. Byles, the maitre d’hotel, 
would fidget about the entrance until she came down, 
then lead the way to her table and, for the rest of 
the meal, hover about in the neighbourhood with an 
eye so hawk-like in its penetrative intensity, that the 
waiter in attendance upon her would make mistakes. 
This was Mr. Byles’s opportunity. He would swoop 
down, annihilate the underling with a glance, purr 
at him with restrained intensity, make good the dam- 
age, smile tactfully and withdraw. 

From where he sat, Beresford had watched this 
little comedy. He also gleaned considerable amuse- 
ment from the interest of his fellow-guests in Lola 
Craven; who herself seemed quite oblivious of the 
sensation her advent had created. The married men 
regarded her with surreptitious and hopeless admi- 


THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES 167 

ration, disguised by feigned indifference. They had 
perforce to listen to their wives’ views upon girls 
staying unchaperoned at hotels. 

The single men looked on her with open admira- 
tion, and eyed each other with covert suspicion. 
Suddenly there had been kindled in their hearts the 
flame of romance, the roof that sheltered them also 
sheltered the famous heiress. Their emotions 
soared high into space. 

None had ever met an heiress before. In the 
minds of all there was a dim idea that beauty and 
wealth were never to be found roaming together. 
To them the word “heiress” called up visions of 
plain features and shapeless bodies. Possibly that 
was why the thought of marrying an heiress had 
never suggested itself to them. Here, however, was 
Providence frankly playing into their hands. 

Beresford was struck by the ingenuity displayed 
by various of the male guests in endeavouring to get 
to know Lola. Some were gentlemen; but many 
were merely opportunists. One little man, who 
looked like “Our Mr. Something-or-other,” was par- 
ticularly assiduous. One day when walking just in 
front of Lola he deliberately pulled his handker- 
chief out of his pocket, and with it fluttered a one- 
pound note. Lola walked over the note as if it had 
not existed, and the little man, after an awkward 
pretence of having discovered his loss, had turned 
and retrieved it. 

On another occasion he had burst unceremo- 
niously into a telephone-box occupied by Lola, and 


168 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


proceeded to apologise as if there were a counter 
between them; but Lola continued with her telephone 
conversation, and again he had to beat a retreat. 

Another man of mature years and over-mature 
complexion seemed to be in a perpetual state of 
having lost something, which he suspected was in 
Lola’s neighbourhood. Yet another invariably car- 
ried his hat in his hand. Beresford suspected that 
his object was to slip it on a chair just before Lola 
sat down. After all, when you have sat on a man’s 
hat, it is a little difficult to refuse to receive his 
apologies ! 

The Thirty-Nine Articles, as Beresford dubbed 
them after a careful count, resorted to every pos- 
sible form of device to scrape an acquaintance with 
the heiress. The one thing they did not do was 
to take the plunge. There was something in Lola’s 
manner that awed them. There was a reserve and 
dignity about her bearing that was unmistakable, 
and instinctively the Thirty-Nine Articles recog- 
nised it, a circumstance that increased Beresford’s 
unpopularity. 

For a time Beresford lived in an atmosphere of 
reflected glory and the offer of unlimited hospitality. 
As soon as he showed his face in any of the common- 
rooms, men seemed to hurtle through space and 
demand that he should drink with them. Cigar and 
cigarette-cases were thrust upon him, men challenged 
him to billiards, sought his company for strolls, 
invited him to bridge, suggested the theatre, a bathe 
or an hour’s fishing. He found it all very bewilder- 


THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES 169 

ing. At first he had been at a loss to account for his 
amazing popularity; but the requests for an intro- 
duction to Lola soon convinced him that it was not 
for himself alone that his company was sought. 

On the second day Beresford had seen Lola only 
for a few minutes as she was passing through the 
lounge. She had stopped to enquire how he was, 
and he noticed a marked difference in her manner. 
It set him wondering if he had seriously offended 
her, and if so what he had done. 

On the third day he did not see her either at 
breakfast or lunch, and she was late for dinner. He 
was conscious of becoming irritable under the strain. 
He had deliberately snubbed two or three men, 
whose overtures were both obvious and annoying. 
He lingered over his dinner, determined to follow 
her as she left the room. Gradually the dining- 
room emptied. Lola rose and, instead of walking 
towards the door, came over to his table. 

“There’s no need to ask if you are better,” she 
said with a friendly smile, as he rose hurriedly. 

“I’m not; I’m very much worse.” 

“Worse?” She raised her eyebrows in interro- 
gation. 

“My nurse has neglected me,” he said whim- 
sically, “and I have been grossly rude to three 
fellow-guests in consequence.” 

“Neglected you?” she repeated, “but ” she 

paused. 

“I don’t want to be a nuisance and take advantage 
of your kindness,” he said seriously, as they walked 


170 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


towards the door, “but if you can spare an hour or 
so occasionally, it will hasten your patient’s 
recovery.” 

“I can hardly come and insist on talking to you, 
can I?” she asked, looking up at him frankly. 

“Will you come in the lounge now?” he asked. 

She nodded and led the way to a quiet corner, 
where they seated themselves. 

Beresford ordered coffee, then picked up the 
thread of conversation where it had been interrupted. 

“Yes, you could,” he said. 

“Could what?” she enquired. 

“Insist on coming up and talking to me.” 

“But ” she began. 

“I’m your patient, and you’ve neglected me hor- 
ribly.” 

“But I don’t understand. If you had wanted ” 

She broke off, then added, “I have been here all 
the time.” 

“But you have been evading your responsibilities,” 
insisted Beresford smiling. “Suppose I had followed 
you about like a lost dog, you would probably have 
regretted your Samaritanism.” 

“But isn’t there something between the two?” 
she asked. 

“Suppose you tell me how many hours of the day 
you can tolerate me,” he said; “in other words, 
ration me.” 

She smiled. “I thought you were avoiding me,” 
she said quite frankly. 

“/ avoiding you?” He looked at her incredu- 


THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES 171 

lously. There was something in his tone that 
brought the colour to her cheeks. 

She nodded. “I did really. I should have liked 
to talk to you. I’m alone here, you see. I suppose 
you wonder why?” She looked up at him suddenly. 

He shook his head. 

“It’s really through you.” 

“Through me?” 

“Yes, what you said at Frint,” she replied 
brightly. “Don’t you remember saying that one 
should have courage in one’s unconventions? Well, 
things had reached such a point I felt that if I spent 
another day in London I should have to scream, so 
I got a doctor I know to prescribe Folkestone for a 
week. I telegraphed to an old governess to meet me 
here, and when I arrived there was a telegram from 
her saying she had rheumatism, and — and I decided 
to stay on. Auntie would be ill if she knew, 
especially as I refused to bring my maid,” she added 
with a laugh. 

Recalling his one experience of Mrs. Crisp’s 
conversation, Beresford found himself able to sym- 
pathise with any one whose fate it was to live in 
perpetual nearness to her. 

“In all probability my reputation is in tatters 
by now; that is, among the other guests,” she said 
with a smile. 

“And you imply that the responsibility is mine?” 

She nodded. 

“But aren’t heiresses a law unto themselves?” 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


m 

She glanced across at him quickly, as if seeking 
some hidden meaning in his words. 

“No one can be a law unto themselves,” she said 
quietly. 

He then proceeded to tell of the embarrassments 
arising from his acquaintance with her. 

“I could smoke like a chimney, drink like a fish, 
and live like the proverbial lord,” he explained, “and 
all for nothing. Such is the power of reflected 
glory.” 

She laughed, only half-believing him. 

“But there’s another side to the picture,” he went 
on. “It’s more difficult to retain than to win popu- 
larity. I shall have to work for it.” 

“Work for it?” she queried, looking up at him 
with puzzled brows. 

“The proffered smokes will fail and the drinks 
will cease unless I do what is expected of me, intro- 
duce to you the whole gang.” 

“Mr. Beresford!” she cried. “What an absolutely 
horrible idea.” 

“You needn’t be alarmed,” he hastened to assure 
her. “I have no intention of doing anything so 
foolish.” 

“Foolish!” 

“There are exactly thirty-nine unattached males 
staying here,” he explained. “I’ve counted them 
very carefully. They range in age from seventeen 
to seventy. Assuming the equal rights of man, this 
would mean that I should speak to you once every 


THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES 


173 


fortieth day, whereas I hope to do so forty times 
each day.” 

“You are really almost as absurd as Lord 
Drewitt,” she laughed, colouring a little. 

“You must be kind to me,” he continued, “or I 
shall let loose the whole horde upon you. Within 
three days I shall be the most unpopular man in 
Folkestone. Those who have urged me to smoke 
cigars and cigarettes will wish to stab me. Those 
who have asked me to drink at their expense will 
suddenly develop into potential Wainewrights and 
Neal Creams. I shall never dare to drink with any 
one for fear of being poisoned.” 

“I wonder why men are like that?” she said, with 
a far-away look in her eyes. 

“I want to make a compact with you,” he said. 

For some minutes neither spoke; she continued to 
gaze straight in front of her with dreamy intentness. 
Beresford smoked contentedly. 

“A compact?” she queried presently, turning to 
him. 

“If you’ll come for a walk every morning, I’ll 
promise not to introduce anybody to you.” 

For a few moments she appeared to be debating 
the suggestion, her head a little on one side, a smile 
! in her eyes. 

“Of two evils choose the lesser,” he suggested. 
“I’m only one, they are thirty-nine.” 

“Very well,” she laughed, “I’ll agree; but you 
must keep them from being annoying.” 

“I’ll buy a machine-gun, if necessary.” 


174 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


2 

“I hate men,” said Lola, apparently addressing 
a sparrow that had perched upon a bush just in 
front of her. 

Beresford smoked on in silence, feeling that the 
remark required no comment from him. 

That morning he had waited for her in the hall, 
and they had set out together for a walk on the 
Leas, Beresford conscious of murderous looks from 
others who had also waited. 

“I suppose that was a very rude remark,” she 
said, turning to him with a smile. 

“Not at all. When I think of the Thirty-Nine 
Articles of Masculine Faith at the Imperial I can 
quite sympathise with you.” 

“What a good thing the number isn’t forty.” She 
looked up at him from beneath her lashes. 

“It may be before long,” he said imperturbably, 
“but the Fortieth Article is determined to enjoy the 
present.” 

“Why do you say it may be ?” 

“ Vide Aunt Caroline,” was the retort. “She 
would be astonished at your being able to tolerate 
my company for half an hour.” 

“Why?” 

“Well, Drew and I always seem to get on her 
nerves. We speak a different language, and in 
reality live in a different world from hers.” 

“And yet you are so dissimilar?” 

“We are as different from each other as each 


THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES 175 

individually is different from Aunt Caroline. Drew 
poses as having eliminated all emotions from his 
nature.” 

I “And you?” she interrogated. 

“I have eliminated all but emotions,” he said, 
looking at her with a smile. 

“And yet Lord Drewitt is — is ” she hesitated. 

“As emotional as a theatrical-star ousted by an 
understudy,” he suggested. 

“But you said he was unemotional.” 

“I said he posed as being unemotional.” 

“How do you mean?” 

“Well, it’s a bit difficult to explain. For instance, 
suppose you were upset in a boat. Drew would go 
in after you, bring you out, and then probably man- 
age to convey to you that you were not looking your 
'best, and had better go home and have a tidy-up.” 

“Then I shall never fall into the water when 
Lord Drewitt is about,” she said gaily. “I should 
want my rescuer to — to ” 

“What?” he asked with interest. 

“Well, I suppose I should want him to look down 
at me anxiously to see if — if I were still alive.” 

“Yes, with the water dripping from his nose and 
ears.” 

“Mr. Beresford!” she cried reproachfully, “I 
think that you and Lord Drewitt between you would 
kill romance.” 

“How can a man afford to be romantic? There 
is poor Drewitt with his title and two thousand a 
^year, as he would tell you quite frankly, and I, 


176 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


without a title and with not so much as two pounds a 
year. No, romance is only for the wealthy.” 

“Romance has nothing whatever to do with 
money,” she said gravely. “Romance is merely a 
love of the beautiful.” 

“The emotionally beautiful,” he corrected. 

“Yes, the emotionally beautiful,” she agreed, 
fixing her eyes on the red sail of a boat far away 
in the distance. 

“The poor man cannot afford to be emotional. It 
would lose for him his friends, his job and his 
chances in life.” 

“But why doesn’t Lord Drewitt do something?” 

“Do something!” he repeated. “What is there 
for him to do?” 

“Couldn’t he work?” she suggested. 

“At what? Peers can’t work. He might drive a 
taxi; but Aunt Caroline would raise Cain.” 

She remained silent for some time, then turning 
to him shook her head, as if unable to make a 
suggestion. 

“Proper allowance is never made for the rise of 
democracy. Drew and I are the products of our 
age. Drew’s profession was that of being a peer, 
whilst I was precipitated into the Foreign Office. 
Then came the war, and everything got mixed up 
again, and I ” he paused. 

“And you?” repeated Lola, looking up at him. 

“I’m at a loose end.” 

“But aren’t you going to work?” 

“What can I do? I could be a clerk at three 


177 


THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES 

pounds a week; but that would be worse than the 
Foreign Office, which at least is quite a decent club. 
I could live in Peckham and come up each day by 
a tram, with linen a little more frayed each year, and 
clothes a little dingier. No, I’m afraid I lack the 
courage to face such a fate.” 

“But what are you going to do?” she persisted; 
then a moment after added, “I’m sorry, it’s horribly 
rude of me to be* so persistent.” 

“Not at all,” he said, gazing straight in front of 
him. “I’m going to enjoy what I can enjoy, and — 
and not bother about the deluge, which is inevitable. 
Louis XIV built palaces on bogs, and was quite 
happy about it; I shall rear castles on sand, and be 
still happier.” 

“I don’t understand.” She puckered her brows* 

“Shall I tell you?” he asked, smiling at her mysti- 
fication. 

“Would you mind? I should awfully like to 
know.” 

“I can go on as I am for two or three weeks 
more. I’m going to squeeze every drop of pleasure 
out of these few weeks, and not bother about what 
happens after.” 

“But,” she persisted, “what are you going to do 
then?” 

“You are almost as material as Aunt Caroline,” 
he smiled. “Why cannot you be romantic? I once 
knew an artist who married a girl when all he 
possessed in the world was four pounds eighteen 
shillings and threepence, he was very insistent upon 


178 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


the threepence, and a drawerful of pawn-tickets. 
That was a splendid act of romance.” 

“Yes; but romance must be ” 

xr No it must not,” he insisted. “Romance must 
be just its mad, capricious, inconsequent self.” 

“But you must have something in mind. What 
is to happen after the four or five weeks?” 

“Aunt Caroline suggests the colonies; both Drew 
and I regard the colonies as an Imperial asset and 
nothing more. We love them from afar. They 
produce splendid fellows — we’ve fought with them; 
but for all that we prefer our own country, just as 
they prefer theirs.” 

“But what have you to live for? There seems 
” she began. 

“Three or four weeks’ good time, a walk a day 
with you, kna the privilege of keeping off the Thirty- 
Nine Articles,” he smiled. 

She looked at him gravely, then shook her head, 
as if entirely unable to comprehend his attitude. 

“I don’t understand you in the least,” she said at 
length, “and I don’t think any one else does, either.” 

“What makes you say that?” enquired Beresford. 

“I was talking to Lady Tanagra Elton a few days 
back about Lord Drewitt, and your name came up, 
and ” she paused. 

“And what?” enquired Beresford, knocking the 
ashes out of his pipe on the heel of his boot. “Do 
not spare me.” 

“Well,” said Lola, with a smile, “she said that 
you were ‘a dear boy, but quite mad.’ ” 


THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES 179 

“God bless her for the first part of her judgment,” 
he laughed; “Tan is one of the jewels of the human 
race.” 

“She seemed charming,” agreed Lola. 

“I must warn you against her, however,” he said 
with mock-seriousness. 

“Warn me?” 

“She’s a born match-maker. She’s always marry- 
ing her friends off and ” he paused dramatically. 

“And what?” she enquired. 

“They’re always the right pairs. Tan never 
makes a mistake.” 

“I really don’t understand you,” she said after a 
long pause, “or what you are going to do when — 
when ” she hesitated. 

“Oh, there are many ways of shuffling-off,” he 
smiled. 

“Suppose ” she began, then hesitated. 

“Yes, suppose ?” 

“Suppose you meant something to someone else, 
and that your shuffling-off, as you call it, would pain 
them, perhaps more than pain them, what then?” 

“If you refer to Aunt Caroline, I can assure you 
that you are wrong,” he said, with a laugh that even 
to himself sounded unnatural. 

Lola flashed him a reproachful look, but said 
nothing. For some moments she remained silent, 
her head turned away. 

“I’m sorry,” he said contritely; but still she 
averted her head. 

“Please don’t be cross with me,” he said, bending 


180 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


towards her, conscious of a delicious thrill as his 
shoulder accidentally touched hers. 

A moment after she turned, and he saw that her 
eyes were moist. 

“I’m awfully sorry,” he said again, “I ” 

“Isn’t it stupid of me,” she smiled an April smile; 

“but ” she paused, then a moment afterwards 

continued, “you and Lord Drewitt seem to be men 
that should have a lot in front of you ; yet you both 
talk — you talk so — as if nothing mattered, as if life 
were just like a theatre, and when the curtain 
dropped that was the end of everything.” 

“And isn’t it?” questioned Beresford. 

“We don’t know, any of us.” 

“A man’s destiny is determined by his forebears, 
and he is moulded by his environment,” said Beres- 
ford. 

“Unless he makes his own environment,” she 
suggested. 

“It’s easy for you to say that. You have before 
you the means of satisfying every wish.” 

“Have I?” she asked dreamily; then as if coming 
back to realities, “Are you sure?” 

“Haven’t you?” 

“Just change places with me in your imagina- 
tion,” she said, “and find womanhood represented 
by the feminine equivalent to the Thirty-Nine 
Articles.” 

“I apologise.” 

“And now I think we had better think about 
lunch,” she said with a smile. 


THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES 


181 


They walked back to the hotel without exchanging 
a word. At the entrance were grouped some of the 
Thirty-Nine anxious lords of creation. 

When Beresford reached his own table in the 
dining-room, he found seated at it a little man with 
a dark moustache, a greasy skin, and a general 
atmosphere of One-of-Us about him. The man 
looked up and smiled. Beresford bowed coldly, as 
he recognised one of his most persistent would-be 
hosts, a man who had invited him to take anything 
from a whisky-and-soda to a high dive in his com- 
pany. 

Beresford sought out Mr. Byles, who smiled with 
servile tact and rubbed his hands. 

‘‘There’s someone sitting at my table, Byles,” 
he said; “I’m going upstairs. I shall be down in 
five minutes. You will find me a table to myself as 
I arranged.” 

“I’m very sorry, sir,” said Byles, “but we’re so 
full up.” 

“You will do as I say,” said Beresford coldly, 
“or I shall report the matter to the management. 
By the way, the seat that Mr. Gordon previously 
occupied is still vacant,” he added over his shoulder 
as he turned towards the door, conscious of a look 
of hatred in Byles’s eyes. 

When he returned to the dining-room his table 
was unoccupied, and the man with the dark mous- 
tache and the moist complexion was darting glances 
of hatred in his direction. Beresford wondered 


182 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


whether or no Byles had returned the handsome tip 
that was to procure for Mr. Gordon the coveted 
seat. Evidently it was intended to be a stepping- 
stone to an introduction to Lola. 


CHAPTER XIII 


A QUESTION OF ANKLES 

P LEASE may I come and talk ’ to you while 
you finish breakfast ?” 

Beresford had almost concluded his own 
meal when Lola entered the room, the ever faithful 
Mr. Byles in attendance. Later he had stepped 
across to her table. 

“I started this morning feeling like a boy scout,” 
he continued; “like several boy scouts, I might say,” 
he added, as he dropped into the chair to which she 
motioned him. 

“A boy scout!” She looked up from a piece of 
toast she was buttering. 

“I simply yearned to make every one happy. 
I was most aggressively eupeptic.” 

“Is that why you came over to talk to me?” she 
enquired without looking up from her plate. 

“I’m always doing good deeds for you,” he said 
reproachfully. 

Her eyes questioned him. 

“I keep from you the Thirty-Nine Articles.” 

She smiled and nodded. 

“One morning,” he continued, “you will look 
across at my table and see my chair empty.” 

183 


184 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“How do you know I shall look across?” she 
challenged, darting him a look from beneath her 
lashes. 

“You are merely interrupting the story,” he said 
severely. “One morning you will look across at my 
table and find it empty,” he repeated. “Later in the 
day there will be a great disturbance when my body 
is found weltering in its own blood. Heroes of 
romance always welter in their own blood,” he 
added. 

“Heroes of romance!” she repeated with uplifted 
brows. “Are you one?” 

“I am the hero of my own romance,” he retorted; 
“but you interrupt me. I had just got to where I 
was weltering in my own blood — the victim of the 
Thirty-Nine Articles.” 

She laughed. 

“And ever afterwards,” he proceeded, “I shall 
share with the Roman sentry, Casabianca and Jack 
Cornwell their laurels for devotion to duty.” 

“I should have preferred to be regarded as a 
pleasure,” she said demurely. 

“It’s my duty to protect my pleasure,” he retorted 
quietly. 

“But you were saying you felt like a boy 
scout ” 

“Like several boy scouts,” he corrected. “I felt 
as Ulysses must have felt when he saw them drag- 
ging the wooden horse into Troy, or Leonidas at 
Thermopylae, or Mr. Lloyd George when he heard 
that Mr. Asquith had been defeated at East Fife; 


185 


A QUESTION OF ANKLES 

in other words, I felt extremely well and happy. 
Then I suddenly caught sight of a girl at the table 
by the window, and it made me ” he paused. 

“Was it love at first sight?” she asked quietly. 

“And then,” he continued, “I found this fair 
world was not so fair. Nature had suddenly ad- 
ministered a cold douche in the shape of a pair of 
calves that terminated suddenly in shapeless feet.” 

“Whatever do you mean?” she cried, laughing. 

“Merely that like Godfrey Elton, I’m very sensi- 
tive about ankles.” 

“But what have this girl’s ankles to do with you?” 
She crinkled up her brows in a way she had when 
puzzled. 

“They spoiled my breakfast,” he complained, 
“and I’m afraid they’re going to spoil the whole 
day for me.” 

“You are funny,” she smiled. “I don’t understand 
you in the least. I always thought that Englishmen 
were unapproachable in the morning; but you are 
more ridiculous in the morning than during the rest 
of the day.” 

“Imagine the state of mind of a woman conscious 
that Nature has left her like an unfinished sym- 
phony,” he continued. “She must tremble every 
time she opens a fashion paper, lest some readjust- 
ment of the surface of exposure shall betray her.” 

“But we are not all Greeks,” she suggested. 

“A woman doesn’t require to be a Greek to be 
conscious of Nature’s inexplicable oversights in 
modelling,” he retorted. 


186 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“I decline to discuss anatomy so soon after break- 
fast,” she laughed as she rose. “I shall be about 
ten minutes,” she threw at him over her shoulder as 
she walked towards the door. 

Beresford sauntered through the vestibule, and 
stood smoking on the hotel steps watching the sparkle 
of the sea. 

Presently Lola joined him and they set out in the 
direction of Hythe. For some time they walked in 
silence; Beresford sucking moodily at his pipe. 

“Is anything the matter?” she enquired at length. 

“Everything’s the matter,” he grumbled. “What 
right has Nature to produce anything so appalling 
as that poor girl?” 

“Oh, I see,” she said. 

“Thick ankles, no taste in dress, sandy hair, sand- 
coloured eyelashes, spectacles. Shapeless, hopeless 
and alone.” 

“But ” began Lola. 

“If you want a more comprehensive list of fem- 
inine disabilities,” he continued, “you are insatiable. 
Such people are a challenge to religious belief.” 
There was a note of gloomy indignation in his 
voice. 

“But perhaps she’s happy,” suggested Lola. 

“Happy!” cried Beresford. “Would you be 
happy if you were in her place?” 

She shuddered slightly. 

“What right has Nature to give you all that she 
has given you, and deny that girl all she has denied 
her. How can she have a good time?” 


A QUESTION OF ANKLES 187 

She looked at him swiftly. He was in deadly 
earnest. 

“Perhaps she doesn’t mind,” she suggested ten- 
tatively. 

“Doesn’t mind?” he cried. “What woman 
doesn’t mind being unattractive? Imagine what she 
must feel when she sees you.” 

Again she flashed at him an enquiring look; but 
there was nothing in his face suggestive of a com- 
pliment. 

“You have all she lacks,” he continued, “and it’s 
all — it’s all — oh, absolutely rotten,” he finished up, 
ejecting the ashes from his pipe by knocking it vigor- 
ously upon the handle of his stick. Then a moment 
later catching her eye he laughed. “I suppose I’m 
on my hobby-horse,” he said. 

“But why bully me?” she asked plaintively. 

“Was I bullying you?” he said. “I’m dreadfully 
sorry; but such things render me capable of bullying 
the Fates themselves. You see I was just catalogu- 
ing that poor girl’s disabilities when you came into 
the room, and it made me feel a selfish beast.” 

“But how?” she asked. 

“Don’t you see I ought to be trying to give her 
a good time instead of ” 

“Giving me a good time,” she suggested avoiding 
his gaze. 

“Letting you give me a good time,” he concluded. 
“Oh ! let’s sit down, perhaps I shall get into a better 
humour if I listen to the larks. Yet it makes me 
murderous when I think of those old ruffians in 


188 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


Rome who considered larks* tongues a delicacy.” 

“Don’t you think you would be better if I left 
you alone?” she suggested, as he dropped down upon 
the grass beside her. 

“Good heavens, no!” he cried, looking across at 
her. “What an awful idea.” 

“But you seem so ” she hesitated. 

“Well, I’ll forget those utilitarian ankles,” he 
smiled. 

“I want to talk to you,” she said hesitatingly. 
“Seriously,” she added, as he smiled across at her. 
“Has it ever struck you that everything ends?” She 
kept her face averted. 

“It has.” He plucked a strong-looking blade of 
grass and proceeded to use it as a pipe-cleaner. 

For some minutes there was silence. 

“I said it has,” he repeated, looking up from his 
occupation. 

She still kept her eyes fixed upon a little clump of 
grass with which she was toying. 

“You’ve been very nice to me,” she began in a 
low voice. 

“I have,” with decision. 

She looked up quickly. “Are you laughing at 
me?” she asked simply. There was in her eyes just 
a suspicion of reproach. 

To Beresford she seemed to possess the power 
of expressing her every emotion without the necessity 
for speech. Her eyes, he decided for the thousandth 
time, were the most wonderful ever bestowed upon 
woman. 


189 


A QUESTION OF ANKLES 

“I was not,” he said in reply to her question. 

‘‘But you are not being serious, are you?” There 
was the simplicity of a child in the look that accom- 
panied her words. 

“Must I be serious?” he asked, pocketing his pipe 
and taking out his cigarette-case. 

“Pleeeeeease.” 

Again there was silence, during which Beresford 
lighted a cigarette. 

“I just wanted you to know,” she said. 

“That I had been nice to you?” 

She nodded. 

“Thank you.” 

“I don’t like men,” she began, and then hesitated. 

“As a conversational opening to set me at my 
ease ” he began with a smile. 

“Now you are not being serious,” she protested. 

“What I wanted to tell you was ” again she 

paused, “that — that — you have been so different 
from the others.” 

“Shall we take all that for granted?” He smiled 
across at her a friendly, understanding smile. 

“Oh yes, let’s,” she cried with a sigh of relief; “I 

have been wanting to tell you only I Of course, 

it seems silly, doesn’t it?” 

“Does it?” 

“Now,” she continued with a great air of decision, 
“there’s the other thing.” 

“Is that serious also?” he asked quizzically. 

She nodded vigorously. 

“I’m afraid I’m going to be very rude,” she cried 


190 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


with a sudden change of manner. The rapid alter- 
nations of her moods always charmed him. 

“To preserve the balance?’’ he suggested, “you 
have my full permission.” 

“And you won’t be cross?” she queried a little 
anxiously. 

iC l promise to combine the patience of Job with 
the restraint of William the Silent.” 

“Suppose ” she began, then paused. 

“Suppose what?” 

“Suppose you thought I was going to do some- 
thing very — very foolish, what would you do?” 

“Envy the happy man.” 

“Oh, please be serious,” she pleaded with a slight 
blush, biting her under-lip to hide the smile that his 
retort had called up. 

“Listen to that lark.” Beresford lifted his eyes 
in an endeavour to discover the bird from which 
came the flood of song. “Suppose you were to ask 
him to be serious,” he suggested. “I’m too happy 
to be serious.” 

“But you are not ” she hesitated. 

“Still, I’ll promise.” 

“You know you worry me.” 

“Worry you?” Suddenly for Beresford the lark 
ceased its song, and the sunshine lost its joyousness. 

“I mean I’m worried about you.” 

“For that re-arrangement of words I thank you.” 

“Please,” she pleaded. 

“I thought you meant that I was a nuisance. If 


A QUESTION OF ANKLES 191 

I am you will tell me, won’t you?” The earnestness 
of his manner was unmistakable. 

“Please don’t be foolish,” she said reproachfully. 
“I know it’s impertinent of me; but I wish you would 
tell me about yourself, about ” 

“About myself?” he queried. “I’ve told you all 
there is to tell.” 

“I mean about the future,” she persisted. 

“Like the mule, I have no future.” 

She turned her head aside, and mechanically began 
to pluck blades of grass. 

“You see,” she began, her head still averted. 

“I’m sorry; but I don’t.” 

“You’re most horribly difficult to talk to,” she 
said, screwing up her eyebrows. 

“But you said ” 

“You promised to be serious, please — pleeeease 
be nice.” 

Be nice ! Did she know that she was tormenting 
him, that she was maddening, that she was irresist- 
ible in that porridge-coloured frock — that was the 
nearest he could get to the actual tint — and that 
floppy sort of hat with orange ribbon, and her grey 
suede shoes and stockings? What an ankle! 

“I’ll be as serious as my situation,” he said, seeing 
reproach in the eyes she turned to him. “Honest 
Injun.” 

She smiled and nodded at the childish phrase. 

“You were talking the other day ” she said, 

then stopped. 

“Why not blurt it out,” he suggested. 


192 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“Well, it hurts me to hear you talk as if nothing 
matters, as if life ” 

“ ‘Life is a watch and a vision, between a sleep and 
a sleep?’ ” he quoted. 

“Yes; but Swinburne meant it beautifully, not as 
something to be got rid of. When I was a kiddie,” 
she continued inconsequently, “I used to tear my 
pinnies when anybody offended me.” 

“And you regard me as wanting to 'tear my 
pinny,” he continued gravely. 

She nodded, with a flicker of a smile. “You’re 
not cross with me?” She looked at him anxiously. 

Why not end it by telling her everything. Instead 
he heard himself saying: 

“I suppose it was really self-pity that made me 
sorry for that girl with the ankles.” 

“I once read somewhere,” she said gravely, look- 
ing him straight in the eyes, “that we are all of us 
influenced to some degree by every one we meet. I 
wish ” she stopped. 

“You wish that you could influence me to turn 
over a new leaf and become a sort of New Year 
resolution.” 

She looked at him reproachfully. 

“It’s easy for a woman to preach the gospel of 
content, particularly when she has all that makes for 
content. You would probably suggest the colonies, 
or America, thinking of The Silver King or Andrew 
Carnegie, or ” 

“Please don’t, you are hurting me.” 

Both the words and the tone were so simple that 


A QUESTION OF ANKLES 193 

he stopped abruptly. She turned aside. He could 
see her lower lip was indrawn. 

“Forgive me,” he said contritely, “I’m all jangly 
to-day. It’s that girl’s ankles,” he added whimsically. 
“I didn’t want to be serious; but you would make 
me, and now you’re angry.” 

Her head was still turned from him. What a 
brute he had been, and how sensitive she was. 

“Lola, please forgive me.” 

It was the first time he had used her name. It 
slipped out unconsciously. He thrilled at the sound. 
She turned, tears dewing her lower lashes. Then 
with a sudden movement she sprang up. 

“Nov/ we must be going,” she cried with a sudden 
change of mood; “I do nothing but eat, sleep and 
sit about. You know,” she said turning to him with 
a smile, “we women have to consider our figures, and 
you’re helping me to ruin mine.” 

Beresford followed her, his mind in a whirl at 
the sudden change in her mood. 

For the rest of the morning she was in the highest 
of high spirits. She insisted on scrambling down 
to the water, and soon succeeded in getting both her 
own and Beresford’s feet soaked. 

“Look!” she cried, drawing back her skirts to 
show the darker line just above her ankles where 
the water had reached. 

“I’m just as wet, and a lot more uncomfortable,” 
he replied lugubriously, as he looked down at his 
brown boots discoloured by the sea-water. “I hate 
walking in wet boots.” 


/ 


19 4 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


She laughed gaily, then a moment after darted off 
like the wind. 

“Let’s run,” she cried over her shoulder. 

Beresford started after her, conscious of the 
absurd figure he must appear stumbling through the 
shingly sand after this fleet-footed creature. 

Presently she dropped down suddenly, he almost 
falling over her. 

“That was good,” she panted, looking up at him 
with burning cheeks and sparkling eyes. “I feel 
like a mad thing this morning. What do you think 
of me?” she challenged. 

“I think I would rather not say,” he said quietly 
as he sank down beside her, and she turned and for 
some time sat looking out to sea. 


CHAPTER XIV 


THE DANGER LINE 

I 

O F course,” said Lola, as she trifled with her 
teaspoon, “I ought really to have gone 
back to town as soon as I found that Miss 
Brock could not come.” 

“You unquestionably ought,” agreed Beresford, 
as he indolently tossed crumbs of cake to a couple 
of sparrows. 

She glanced at him swiftly, then dropped her 
eyes. 

“That’s not what I wanted you to say.” 

“I know,” he said with a laugh. “Well, why 
didn’t you go back to town?” 

“I suppose because I didn’t want to.” She gave 
him a look from under her lashes. 

They were sitting in the garden of an old inn 
having tea. Lola had expressed a wish for an 
excursion inland, and Beresford had hired a car. 

It was an old-fashioned spot surrounded by an 
ivy-covered wall. The back of the house was 
obscured by a trellis covered with crimson-ramblers. 
A few fruit trees disputed with currant and rose 
*95 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


196 

bushes the possession of the garden. It seemed as 
if Nature had been permitted to go her own way, 
without either help or hindrance from man. 

In the centre of the garden was a sundial, moss- 
green from exposure to the weather, the base over- 
grown with grass and some sort of weed-like creeper, 
whilst from above the lattice-windowed inn, a 
chimney reared its long neck and smoked lazily into 
the blueness of the sky. Birds were twittering and 
dropping on to the grass, seizing the crumbs of cake 
that Beresford idly tossed to them, then, as if sud- 
denly realising their daring, they would speed away 
to devour their plunder in safety. 

As the days passed, Lola and Beresford had 
drifted into the habit of spending all their time 
together. There had been no plan or arrangement; 
it had just happened. They still sat at different 
tables in the dining-room. She had not invited him 
to take meals with her. She was thinking of the ! 
proprieties, he decided. He was conscious that they 
formed the topic of conversation at the Imperial. 
The Thirty-Nine Articles had frankly thrown him 
overboard, and either ignored or glared at him. 

During their walks and excursions together, Lola 
had told him much about herself. How she had lost 
her mother when a few months old, and her father, 
who died of a broken heart, three years later. An 
uncle in New Zealand, whom she had never seen, 
had assumed responsibility for his brother’s child. 

A little more than a year previously he had died, 
and she had inherited his vast fortune. 


THE DANGER LINE 


197 


Just as war broke out her guardian had arranged 
for Mrs. Crisp, her mother’s sister, to become her 
“dragon.” Beresford gathered that there was no 
very great sympathy between Lola and her aunt. 

There was a sadness in her voice when she spoke 
of her uncle. Apparently he had misogynist tenden- 
cies, and had refused to see the niece for whom he 
had provided. He would neither allow her to- go 
to New Zealand, nor would he himself come to 
England. He was a man who lived entirely for his 
work. 

In return Beresford told what little there was to 
tell about himself. How his mother had died when 
he was born, and his father had been killed in the 
hunting field a year later. Up to the time of his 
leaving Oxford, a cousin of his father’s had acted 
as guardian. The fact that neither had known their 
parents seemed to constitute a bond between them. 

“In my case, you see,” Beresford remarked with 
a smile, when he had concluded his little autobio- 
graphical sketch, “the fairy uncle was missing.” 

As they sat in the inn garden, both were thinking 
of the approaching end of their holiday. 

“1 must go back to-morrow,” she said. “More 
tea?” 

“May I come, too? and yes, please.” 

For a moment she looked at him with crinkled 
eyebrows, her fingers on the handle of the teapot. 
Then she laughed and proceeded to fill his cup. 

“You’re very literal,” she said, as she handed it 
to him. 


198 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“Am I?” he asked, selecting with great delibera- 
tion a lump of sugar, and holding it poised over the 
tea until it was slowly discoloured. 

“You would make a very trying ” she broke 

off suddenly and dropped her eyes. 

“But you haven’t answered my question.” He 
pretended not to notice either her embarrassment 
or her flushed cheeks. 

“Didn’t I?” Her gaze was fixed upon a black cat 
that was making a great business of stalking a 
sparrow. 

“You’re merely trying to gain time.” 

“Am I?” 

“You know you are.” 

“Why should I want to gain time?” Her gaze 
was still on the black cat which, having raised its 
bird when fully four yards away, was looking about 
expectantly like Elijah in the desert — for more birds. 
“Why should I want to gain time?” she repeated as 
Beresford remained silent. She still avoided his 
eyes. 

“Possibly to spare my feelings,” he replied, 
watching her closely. 

“Or save my reputation,” she retorted. 

“Is it as bad as that?” 

“What, my reputation?” She stole a glance at 
him; but finding his gaze upon her dropped her eyes 
instantly. 

“No, the situation.” 

Again she was looking at the black cat. 


THE DANGER LINE 199 

<r You have compromised me most horribly at the 
hotel,” she said reproachfully. 

With great deliberation Beresford rose and 
walking over to where the black cat was striving to 
return to the primitive bird-stalking ways of its 
progenitors, sent it clambering up the ivy and over 
the wall by the simple process of making a wild dive 
towards it. With equal deliberation he returned to 
his seat and, catching Lola’s puzzled gaze, smiled. 

“Why did you do that?” she enquired. 

“I resent all rivals to your attention, be they the 
Thirty-Nine Articles or one solitary black cat,” he 
replied, offering her a cigarette. 

She shook her head, and he proceeded to light 
one himself. 

“You are absurd,” she laughed a little self- 
consciously. 

“If your finances were reduced to the equivalent 
of about two weeks of ease and pleasure,” he replied, 
“you, too, would be inclined to husband your 
resources.” 

“Am I a resource?” she flashed, then seeing him 
smile and, realising the implication, she began to 
search nervously in her bag. 

“It’s there,” he said, pointing to an absurd dab of 
cambric that lay on the table beside her. 

She looLed up and, meeting his eyes, laughed. 

“I think it will be better not,” she said, toying 
with her handkerchief. 

“To be a resource?” he queried. 


200 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“Of course not,” she laughed. “I was answering 
your question.” 

“Which one?” 

“How trying you are, and it’s so hot,” she 
protested, fanning herself with her handkerchief. 
“The one about returning to London, of course. 
Besides,” she added with feminine inconsistency, 
“the doctor ordered you to stay here.” 

“Not indefinitely,” he objected. 

“But you’ve only been here a week.” 

“This is the ninth day of my wonder.” 

“And consequently the last.” 

He looked across at her, startled in spite of him- 
self, as she sat, looking deliciously cool and provok- 
ingly pretty, in a little toque of brilliant colouring 
above an oatmeal-coloured frock. 

“Somewhere in the lap of the ages I shall rest 
the better for the knowledge that once in my life I 
had a good time.” He smiled at her gravely. 

“Why do you say that?” she asked, looking at him 

with startled eyes. “It sounds so — so ” she 

broke off, unable to find a simile. 

For fully a minute he continued to smoke without 
speaking. At length he said, disregarding her 
question — 

“Hasn’t it been said that we never know when we 
are happy?” 

She nodded. 

“I have been happy for the last few days,” he 
continued, “and I have been conscious of it every 
moment of the time.” 


THE DANGER LINE 


201 


She made no reply; but continued to toy with the 
lace of her handkerchief. 

“Rain-Girl,” he said quietly, “you have been a 

ripping pal, I ” he broke off as she looked up. 

There were tears in her eyes. 

“I wish you wouldn’t talk like that,” she said in 
a low voice, none too well under control. 

“Like what?” 

“About — about Oh, I’m ridiculous V' making 

a vicious little dab with her handkerchief at a tear 
that toppled over the brim, and ran down the side 
of her nose. “You know what I mean,” she said 
accusingly a moment later. 

“Do I?” he asked calmly. 

“Yes, now, don’t you? Oh, please, please try and 
be different.” There was eager pleading in her 
voice. 

“There’s the leopard and his spots,” he suggested 
smiling. 

“Please be serious, Mr. Beresford.” 

The use of his name seemed to bring him back 
from the shadowed pathway of his thoughts. 

“I can’t be serious if you are formal and call me 
‘Mr. Beresford’ in that reproachful way.” His eyes 
challenged, “It makes me feel like the Fortieth 
Article.” 

She laughed. 

“I would sooner fall back into the nameless void 
of the last eight days than be ‘Mr. Beresford’ on the 
ninth.” 


202 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“Well, will you?” She looked at him, her head 
slightly on one side. 

“Will I what?” he queried. 

“You really are the most provoking person I ever 
met,” she cried in mock despair. 

“That’s exactly what Aunt Caroline says,” he 
remarked easily. “Only she puts it more pithily. 
She just says, ‘Richard, you’re a fool.’ ” 

“But you are rather trying, you know, aren’t 
you?” She looked at him smilingly, her head still 
a little on one side, as if desirous of coaxing from 
him the admission. 

“And if she gets still further exasperated,” he 
continued, “she adds, ‘You always were a fool.’ 
My folly has become something of a family tradi- 
tion. Even Drew frankly confesses that I’m a fool 
although, out of the kindness of his heart, he modi, 
fies it somewhat by adding that he regards me as a 
pleasant sort of fool.” 

“I wish I knew when you were serious.” She re- 
garded him with a comical expression of uncertainty 
on her face. 

“Never, if I can help it;” then suddenly leaning 
towards her, he said, “Yes, I’ll be serious now. 
I’m serious when I tell you that I’ve been happier 
during the last nine days than in all the rest of my 
life before. I’m serious when I tell you how I value 
your comradeship,” his voice shook a little. “I’m 
serious when I tell you that it has meant a lot to 
me to be taken on trust, as you have taken me. You 
have been splendid, Rain-Girl, more splendid than 


THE DANGER LINE 


203 


I thought it possible for any woman to be. You 
are just wonderful.” 

He smiled right into her eyes, and she looked 
down quickly. 

“IVe finished now,” he said lightly. “I’m not 
often ” 

“Please don’t.” The words came from her lips 
almost in a sob. 

“I’m sorry.” He leaned across the table, and 
for a moment laid his hand on hers. “What is the 
matter?” 

“Oh, I’m just silly, that’s all,” she cried, jumping 
up. “Why, there’s the kitten back,” and she 
pointed with her parasol to where the black cat was 
once more engaged in the everlasting self-deception 
that she was a great hunter of birds. 

“Now let’s go,” she cried gaily, moving towards 
the gate. 

They drove back to Folkestone in silence, both 
conscious of disappointment, Beresford with him- 
self for having even momentarily forsaken his en- 
trenched position of reserve; Lola with something 
that she was unable to define. 

“And I’m not to receive an answer to my ques- 
tion?” he enquired quizzically as he handed her out 
of the car at the entrance of the Imperial. 

“I’ll tell you after dinner,” she smiled, “whilst 
we are walking on the Leas. There will be a glo- 
rious moon to-night,” she added as, with a nod, 
she left him with the conviction that the afternoon 


204* THE RAIN-GIRL 

would in all probability prove as nothing to the 
evening. 

As he went up to his room to dress, he decided 
that he would take no wine at dinner. 

2 

As Beresford entered the dining-room that eve- 
ning, Mr. Byles was hovering about, obviously wait- 
ing for Lola to make her appearance, he decided. 
To his surprise, however, the major-domo ap- 
proached him smiling and rubbing his hands. 

“I’ve taken the liberty of using your table this 
evening, sir, as you are dining with Miss Craven,” 
he said in the mellow, unctuous tone that he had 
adopted to Beresford since their little passage at 
arms over Mr. Montagu Gordon, whose Scottish 
name found so startling a contradiction in his nose. 

Thrilled at the prospect of a tete-a-tete with 
Lola, Beresford nodded his acquiescence and, with 
an indifference he was far from feeling, walked over 
to her table and took the seat opposite that she 
usually occupied. He was conscious that every eye 
in the room was upon him, particularly the femi- 
nine eyes. Why hadn’t she fold him that he was 
to dine with her this evening? Possibly it was a 
sudden whim. He was elated at the prospect. His 
previous qualms vanished. Nothing mattered now. 
There was just this delirious happiness, and then — 
the deluge. What of it? It was wonderful to be 
alive ! 


THE DANGER LINE 


205 


His thoughts were interrupted by the sight of 
Lola approaching, conducted by the inevitable Mr. 
Byles. She was dressed in a simple black frock 
with a bunch of red roses at her waist. With a 
thrill he told himself that they were those he had 
sent her on the previous day. 

“What do you think of me?” she enquired when 
Mr. Byles had taken a reluctant departure, having 
assured himself that everything was as it should be. 

“Is it permitted to say?” asked Beresford. 

“I’m afraid I’m in a mad mood to-night,” she 
cried as she unfolded her napkin. 

“And I am the sauce that is served with your 
madness?” he questioned. 

She laughed. 

“And you?” she demanded. 

“More sober than usual,” he replied with a smile. 

She made a little moue . 

“You see it will preserve the Aristotelean mean,” 
he continued, as he helped himself to hors d’ oeuvres. 

“The Aristotelean what?” she questioned, look- 
ing up from a sardine she was dissecting, with great 
daintiness, he thought. 

“The via media” 

“Would you mind coming down to my intellec- 
tual level?” she asked demurely. 

Beresford laughed. 

“Well?” she said, “I’m waiting.” 

“For?” 

“You to come down from the classical clouds.” 

“Shall we say striking the balance,” he sug- 


206 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


gested, “the middle way between your too much and 
my too little?” 

“Am I too much?” she queried. 

“For the women, yes, for the men, no. You see 
there are thirty-nine of them.” Then seeing a 
shadow pass across her face, he hastened to add, “I 
didn’t mean that about the women,” he hesitated: 
“May I say it?” 

She nodded. 

“You look so radiant and happy,” he added half 
to himself, “that ” he stopped dead. 

“More wonderful than on a gate?” she chal- 
lenged. 

“Nothing could be more wonderful than that,” 
he said gravely, declining the wine that Mr. Byles 
was about to pour into his glass. 

Seeing him refuse she looked across with elevated 
brows. He removed the inhibition, Mr. Bjdes de- 
pressed the neck of the bottle and the wine cfeamed 
into the glass. 

“Why?” she queried, nodding at his wine glass. 

“Shall we say to preserve the Aristotelean mean?” 
he questioned quizzically. 

Again she made that intimate little moue that 
set his pulses thrdbbing. 

“I’m in a mad mood to-night,” she cried again. 

“You’ve already taken me into your confidence 
on that point.” 

“Have I?” 

“It’s probably due to a sense of sex isolation.” 
He looked at her mischievously over his soup spoon. 


THE DANGER LINE 


m 

“A sense of ?” 

“Every woman in the room disapproves of you,” 
he said. “In other words, you are in a state of 
splendid sex isolation, feminine sex that is.” 

“I don’t mind,” she laughed. 

“On the other hand,” continued Beresford, “the 
male sex is with you to a man. That merely ag- 
gravates the situation.” 

For some minutes they ate in silence. 

“If I were at the evening of the ninth day of my 
only wonder ” She paused to see if he under- 

stood. 

“I think I follow you through the labyrinth,” he 
smiled. 

“I should be more excited,” she concluded a lit- 
tle weakly. 

“More excited than what?” he asked mystified. 

“Than you are.” Her eyes challenged him. 

“Unless you immediately withdraw that remark,” 
he said warningly, “I shall insist on your feeling my 
pulse.” 

T T withdraw,” she added hastily. “I’m so glad 
I’m not a cow,” she cried presently, as with a sigh 
she placed her knife and fork at the “all clear” 
angle. * 

“So am I,” he said quietly. 

“So are you!” she repeated with a puzzled ex- 
pression. 

“Glad that you are not a cow,” he explained. 

“Why?” she challenged. 

“Well, you see,” he said gravely, “I should only 


208 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


be able to rub your nose, and you would soon get 
tired of that.” 

“How absurd you are,” she cried. “I certainly 
should get tired of it. Besides,” she added incon- 
sequently, “you would rub the powder off.” 

“But it was the cow’s nose.” 

“You said my nose.” 

“Temporarily leaving the question of whose nose 
for a later discussion,” he said, “may I ask why 
this expression of satisfaction at the august decrees 
of Providence.” 

“It would be so monotonous,” she objected. 

“But I take it that even cows have their mo- 
ments,” he suggested. 

“Oh, you don’t understand,” she cried with mock 
impatience. 

“I think I do,” he said quietly. “But it has been 
better said elsewhere, has it not?” 

“Elsewhere?” 

“ ‘I thank Thee that I am not as other men are,’ ” 
he quoted, and then added, “for ‘other men,’ how- 
ever, read ‘cows.’ ” 

“Oh!” There was consternation in her voice. 
“Did it sound like that? How dreadful.” 

“You have every justification.” 

“Please don’t.” 

“I’m very sorry,” he said, recognising the genu- 
ine entreaty in her voice. “Before coffee comes I 
want you to drink a toast with me.” 

“A toast?” she repeated, her eyes sparkling. 
“Oh, please tell me what it is.” 


THE DANGER LINE 209 

“Otherwise you could not drink it.” 

“Pleeeeease,” she entreated. 

“It is to a certain gate on a Surrey high-road,” 
he said gravely, raising his glass. 

“Oh !” There was disappointment in her 

voice. Then with a laugh she raised her glass and 
drank. 

Later, as they were about to rise from the table 
Beresford said: 

“But I haven’t yet thanked you for asking me to 
dinner.” 

“I didn’t ask you,” she said rising and picking 
up her handkerchief. “I instructed Byles to put you 
here.” 

He bowed humbly. “May I ask why?” he en- 
quired. 

“Because it’s the ninth day of your wonder, and 
now I’ll go and get my cloak,” and she led the way 
out of the dining-room, Beresford following, ex- 
hilarated by the sensation her every movement 
seemed to create among the other guests. 

3 

The moon had not yet risen. There was no 
wind ; the night was very still. Occasionally a shout 
or a laugh would stab the oppressive silence, seem- 
ing to add to its density. Here and there a sudden 
point of flame showed the whereabouts of some man 
lighting a cigarette or pipe. 


210 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“You haven’t yet answered my question about 
to-morrow,” said Beresford. 

She did not reply. After fully three minutes’ si- 
lence he reminded her that he was still waiting. 

“I’m so sorry,” she said with the air of one col- 
lecting her thoughts. “You see ” she hesi- 

tated. 

“Your reputation,” he queried. 

She nodded. 

“But ” he began. 

“And then it’s also the tenth day,” she said mis- 
chievously. 

“Please let me arrange everything,” he said with 
the air of a boy asking to be allowed to handle a 
gun. 

“Very well,” she sighed. “My reputation be on 
your head.” 

“And I may arrange the time of the train and 
everything?” 

Again she nodded, then a moment after said: 

“You have me at a disadvantage. I can’t argue 
on such a night. Now let’s wait and watch for the 
moon.” They were sitting on their favourite seat 
facing the sea. “I don’t want to talk. Oh, that 
was terribly rude,” she added; “but you understand, 
don’t you?” 

For answer Beresford touched her hand, then 
withdrew his quickly. 

In silence they sat watching a patch on the hori- 
zon faintly flushed with yellow. Presently above 
the cloud of mist there slowly rose a dull globe of 


THE DANGER LINE 


211 


orange that began laboriously to climb the sky, heavy 
as if with weeping. 

“It looks as if it were afraid of something that 
it knows it will see,” said Lola in an awed voice. 

Beresford felt her arm touch his shoulder. Was 
it accidental? he asked himself. With a feeling 
of exaltation he noticed that she did not withdraw. 
He made a slight movement, severing the contact as 
if by accident. He waited breathlessly. Yes, her 
arm had touched his shoulder again. She — 
she 

Something wild and primitive seemed to spring 
into being within him. Something of the age when 
men fought for their women and carried them off 
by brute force. Why did he not carry off this girl? 
Why was she sitting there beside him if she were 
not prepared to be carried off? Why did he not 
clasp her to him and pour incoherent words into her 
ears, smothering her with kisses, inhaling the sweet 
perfume of her? Women such as she were won in 
a riot of physical mastery. She was no mate for 
the drawing-room wooer. No one would under- 
stand her as he had understood her. Other men 
would 

Suddenly there came the thought of the Thirty- 
Nine Articles and he laughed, a short, odd laugh, 
which seemed to strike the soft night air like a dis- 
cord. She started, turning to him with eyes dilated 
a little. 

“What — what is the matter?” she enquired with 
a quick indrawing of breath. 


212 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“I was thinking of the Thirty-Nine Articles,” he 
replied in a voice that he failed to recognise as his 
own. “Shall we go back?” 

Without a word she rose and they walked towards 
the Imperial. Was it his imagination, or did her 
steps really lag? She appeared listless, so differ- 
ent from what she had been at dinner. It was ab- 
surd. He was in a mood to attribute all sorts of 
causes to simple actions. In suggesting that they 
should return to the hotel he had deliberately 
stabbed himself, and the pain of it maddened him. 
Still the Challice pride had triumphed. 

There was no doubt about the listlessness with 
which Lola climbed the steps to the hotel. At the 
foot of the stairs she turned, and in a tired voice 
bade him good-night — where was that little inti- 
mate smile that he had come to regard as his own 
most cherished possession? 

He went out once more into the night and walked 
and walked and walked, returning when the birds 
were twittering their greetings to the dawn. 


CHAPTER XV 


LONDON AND LORD DREWITT 

X OW am I going to explain you to auntie?” 

“By Jove! I hadn’t thought of that.” 

I Beresford’s look of consternation was 
so obvious that Lola laughed. 

“I might add,” she proceeded mischievously, 
“how am I to explain travelling back to London 
with you in a reserved compartment? It’s — 
it’s ” 

“I know,” he said. “I was thinking of that, only 
I didn’t say it.” 

“Didn’t say what?” she asked, genuinely puz- 
zled. 

“What it was like.” 

Her face crimsoned and, turning her head aside, 
she became engrossed in the landscape streaming 
past the window. 

“You haven’t told me what I’m to say to auntie,” 
she said presently, still looking out of the window. 

“Couldn’t you say that I saved your life whilst 
bathing, or plucked you from a burning hotel, or 

that you ran over me when motoring, or ” 

“That I came across you in a lunatic asylum,” 
she suggested scathingly. “If I had been nearly 
213 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


214 

drowned the newspapers would have got hold of it, 
and the Imperial couldn’t have been burned by 
stealth, and if ” 

“Enough,” he laughed. “I apologise. Why not 
tell her the truth?” 

“The truth?” she queried. 

“I grant it’s the last thing that one usually thinks 
of. Say that I fainted in your arms in the dining- 
room of the Imperial and ” 

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” she laughed. “Seri- 
ously though,” she added a moment later. “I think 
it would be the best plan.” 

“To say that I fainted in your arms?” he asked 
innocently. 

“That going to the assistance of a fellow-guest 
Vho had fainted,” she continued severely, “I found 
that he was a cousin of Lord Drewitt.” 

“And nephew of Lady Drewitt, don’t forget 
that,” he said hastily, “or Aunt Caroline would never 
forgive you.” 

“I’ll remember,” she nodded. 

“And having dragged me back resisting to this 
world,” he continued, “you might add that you 
neglected me in a land where foster-mothers were 
not.” 

“Whatever are you talking about?” 

‘‘Only of your neglect during the early days of 
my convalescence.” 

“Suppose it got to be known that you and I were 
travelling up to London in a reserved compart- 


LONDON AND LORD DREWITT 215 

ment?” Lola looked at him. “What would peo- 
ple say?” she demanded reproachfully. 

“The worst without a doubt; but what they would 
say would be as nothing to what they would think. 
It’s not really reserved, you know,” he added, 
“merely the result of the constitutional venality of 
railway guards.” 

“But you don’t consider my reputation.” 

“You have allowed me to consider little else for 
the last nine days,” was the calm retort. 

“Well, you must come to lunch to-morrow and 
explain to auntie, and bring Lord Drewitt. We’ll 
invite Mr. Deacon Quelch. He’s auntie’s pet me- 
dium. It’s so funny to see Lord Drewitt look at 
him.” She laughed at the recollection. 

“I think Drew mentioned that he had met Mr. 
Quelch,” said Beresford drily, recollecting Drewitt’ s 
description. 

“Now you won’t forget,” she said. “Two 
o’clock to-morrow, and above all discretion.” 

“Do you think I’m likely to forget?” he asked 
pointedly, “the luncheon, I mean.” 

“You might faint again,” she suggested de- 
murely, “or — or ” 

“Or what?” 

“Or go away,” she glanced at him swiftly. 

Somehow her simple remark seemed to bring back 
to him the full realisation of his position. A week 

or two and he would be faced by He shook 

himself as if to drive away the thought. 

/ M Why did you do that?” she asked curiously. 


216 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“Why did I do what?” 

“Shake yourself like — like ” 

“A little devil had settled on my shoulder and 
was whispering unpleasant things into my ear,” he 
explained with a smile. 

“You are funny.” She looked at him apprais- 
ingly. “You are funnier than any one I have ever 
known.” 

“Pour s’ amuse la reine ’’ he smiled. 

“I wish I understood you,” she said, still regard- 
ing him with gravely intent eyes. 

“And you think I should wear better understood?” 
he queried. 

“You’re not like ” 

“The other Thirty-Nine Articles. Grace a 
Dieu!” he laughed. 

“I can see it’s no use,” she said with a sigh. 
“You won’t be serious.” 

“I dare not.” 

The tone rather than the words caused her to look 
at him quickly; but he was smiling. 

The train was now rushing into bricks and mor- 
tar. To Beresford the greyness of the unending 
lines seemed reflected in his own thoughts. It was 
getting very near the end — the end with a capital 
“E.” Still it had been wonderful, and he was not 
going to complain. 

Nothing more was said until they drew into Vic- 
toria Station, and then only the commonplaces about 
luggage and a taxi. He secured a porter, retrieved 
Lola’s luggage from the avalanche that was de- 


LONDON AND LORD DREWITT 217 

scending upon the platform from the guard’s van, 
and finally secured a taxi. 

“Thank you very much indeed for — for every- 
thing,” she said with a smile as she held out her 
hand. 

“You will let me see you sometimes?” he pleaded. 

“But I thought you were going away,” she said 
smiling. 

“Oh, ‘the bird of time has still a little way to flut- 
ter/ ” he quoted as the taxi jerked forward. 

“To-morrow then,” she cried. 

He lifted his hat and turned to the business of 
securing his own luggage and another taxi. 

At the Ritz-Carlton he found that the letter he 
had sent from Folkestone cancelling his room had 
miscarried, involving a still further drain into his 
already sadly depleted capital. These gradual in- 
roads into the limited balance of his days were be- 
coming disturbing. 

By six o’clock he had discovered and taken a 
small furnished bachelor flat in St. James’s Man- 
sions, Jermyn Street, had transferred there from the 
Ritz-Carlton, and was on his way to call upon 
Drewitt. 

As he was shown in by Hoskins, he found Ed- 
ward Seymour just about to take his departure. 

“Behold, my dear Teddy,” said Drewitt, lazily 
waving his hand towards Beresford, “the personi- 
fication of a spirit of romance that no Cervantes 
could have killed.” 

Edward Seymour looked from Beresford to 


218 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


Drewitt, blinking his eyes like a puzzled owl, then 
feeling that the surest defence lay in offence, he 
turned to Beresford. 

“I suppose you’ve been spending money again,” 
he sneered. 

“No, Edward,” said Beresford with a smile, he 
felt he could afford to smile at everything to-day, 
“as a matter of fact the taxi-man brought me for 
nothing.” 

“Have you ever read Don Quixote ?” enquired 
Drewitt of Edward Seymour. 

He shook his sandy little head. He always felt 
at a disadvantage with Drewitt. 

“That would explain my allusion, Teddy. Now 
you must run away to Cecily, or she will think you 
are lost. Give her my love, and tell her I shall dis- 
pute the will.” The smile which accompanied 
these words robbed them of some of their sting. 

“I’ll tell Aunt Caroline that you’re back,” said 
Edward Seymour to Beresford as he walked towards 
the door. 

Beresford nodded as the door closed behind him. 

“That’s just the sort of thing that dear, amiable, 
sweet-natured little Teddy would do,” said Drewitt. 
“Richard, before you plunge me into the mael- 
strom of your adventures, I beseech you to ring for 
coffee.” 

Beresford did so. 

“No, Richard, not a word until I am fortified. 
Three times this week have I seen the aunt, twice 
been buttonholed by Sir Redman Bight, the club 


LONDON AND LORD DREWITT 219 


bore, in addition to being invited to join the Board 
of the Auto-Balloon Bus and Tram Car Syndicate, 
I think that was its name. It has really been most 
exhausting. By the way, did you ring twice ?” 

Beresford nodded. 

“Thank you for remembering that twice means 
coffee. You might have rung three times, which 
means ; but never mind, that is a purely domes- 

tic matter.” 

After a pause Drewitt continued, “London’s ex- 
actly where you left it, Richard, incidentally where 
Lola Craven left it also. She has not been heard of 
or seen since that breakfast. Heavens ! that break- 
fast — and — and her aunt. Her conversation made 
me feel like rose-blight subjected to a patent spray- 
exterminator. I have never encountered anything 
like it.” A look of complete misery overspread 
Drewitt’s features. “I’m positively afraid to en- 
quire of Hoskins how much I owe for coffee. It 
must be a prodigious amount. Ah! here it is,” as 
Hoskins entered with a tray and proceeded to fill 
the two white and gold cups, which he handed to 
Drewitt and Beresford. 

“What I most admire about you, Richard, is your 
capacity for the unexpected. You leave London for 
all the discomforts of the country-side, from damp 
beds to mosquitoes, your loving family hears noth- 
ing of you for eight weeks, then suddenly you reap- 
pear, clothed in a manner that is a direct challenge 
to Solomon — the king, I mean, not the Piccadilly 
florist. You then proceed to behave in a manner 






THE RAIN-GIRL 


220 

that is eccentric, even for you, Richard, who in your- 
self are a sort of mental jazz-band. Now for your 
story, I can bear it.” 

In a few words Beresford told of the “acciden- 
tal” meeting with Lola Craven at the Imperial, and 
that he had accepted an invitation for Drewitt and 
himself to lunch on the morrow. He refrained 
from mentioning that Mr. Quelch would be present. 

“Impossible, quite impossible. To-morrow I am 
lunching with — let me see, who is it? I know it’s 
somebody uncomfortable, because I have been look- 
ing forward to it with dread.” 

“To-morrow you are lunching with us, Drew,” 
said Beresford quietly. 

“Since you put it so persuasively,” he said drily, 
“I cannot of course refuse. Perhaps you will ring 
the bell once, that means that Hoskins’ presence is 
required.” 

Beresford did so, and a moment later Hoskins 
entered. 

“Hoskins,” said Drewitt, “I am due to lunch with 
somebody or other to-morrow. It doesn’t matter 
with whom. Just say that — that — well, just make 
my excuses in your usual inimitable manner.” 

Hoskins bowed and withdrew. 

“Richard, you are keeping something from me.” 
Drewitt reached for a cigarette and proceeded to 
light it. 

“And you, with your customary discretion, will 
not press the matter,” said Beresford with a smile. 

“Perhaps you’re right. When a man makes a 


LONDON AND LORD DREWITT 221 


peculiarly transparent sort of ass of himself, he is 
usually too conscious of the fact to require outside 
comment. By the way, the Aunt has been enquir- 
ing about you.” 

“About me?” queried Beresford. 

“Yes. I think I unduly alarmed her by an indis- 
creet reference to a possible inquest upon your re- 
mains. Perhaps one or two ill-advised references 
to the cheerless and unhygienic qualities of coroners’ 
courts were responsible. What she will say when 
she learns that you have been cutting the ground 
from under my feet at Folkestone, I haven’t the most 
remote idea.” 

“Don’t be an ass.” 

“Richard,” continued Drewitt, “I have a fore- 
boding. Like the estimable Cassandra, I feel a 
perfect tenement-house of foreboding. With your 
romantic disposition, Lola Craven’s fascinating per- 
sonality and your high sense of honour and integ- 
rity, we have a situation that Sophocles would have 
welcomed with tears of artistic joy.” 

“You are talking a most awful lot of rot, Drew.” 
Beresford was conscious of a surly note in his voice. 

“How much money have you got?” Drewitt 
leaned forward slightly, the bantering note had dis- 
appeared from his voice. 

Beresford looked across at him curiously. 

“I’ve given up taking stock of my resources.” 

For fully a minute there was silence, broken at 
length by Drewitt. 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“Richard, there are a few hundreds at the bank 
unclaimed by my hysterical creditors, if ” 

“Thanks, old man,” said Beresford quietly as 
he rose. “I shall be all right,” and he gripped with 
unusual warmth the hand that Drewitt extended to 
him. 

“You’re in the very devil of a mess, Dickie,” he 
said quietly. “I’m always here when you want me.” 

Beresford drove back to Jermyn Street to tele- 
phone to Lola that Drewitt would be able to lunch 
on the morrow. He felt strangely lonely without 
her. For the last week he had been constantly in 
her company, and now suddenly she had been lifted 
clean out of his life. There was the whole evening 
to dispose of, and the following morning until lunch* 
time. He might go to a theatre, it was true; but 
what object would there be when his thoughts would 
be elsewhere than with the performers? 

Arrived at Jermyn Street, he got through to the 
Belle Vue, and held the line for nearly ten minutes 
whilst they were searching for Lola. Eventually 
a message came that she was not to be found, and 
with a vicious jab he replaced the receiver. Three 
times he rang her up, and three times the message 
was the same. Finally he sat down to write a note 
and, having spoiled a number of sheets of note- 
paper, folded and placed in an envelope something 
with which he was entirely dissatisfied. It was im- 
possible to write to the Rain-Girl with all sorts of 
barriers and restraints intervening. 


CHAPTER XVI 


THE NINE DAYS ENDED 

Y OU’RE just in time to prevent Hoskins from 
undermining my taste in dress,” said 
Drewitt, who, garbed in a wonderful silk 
dressing-gown of an eccentric pattern of black and 
white, was lolling back in a chair. 

Beresford had arranged to pick him up on his 
way to keep the luncheon engagement with Lola. 

Hoskins smiled with a deprecating air that plainly 
said, “You know his lordship’s little way, sir!” 

“He wants me to wear this tie,” holding out a 
black poplin tie with white spots, “with these 
trousers,” indicating the trousers he was wearing, 
black with thin white perpendicular lines. 

“Well, why not?” enquired Beresford. 

“There are some men,” said Drewitt, looking 
reproachfully at Beresford, “so supremely oblivious 
of their social obligations as to be capable of wear- 
ing spotted trousers with a striped tie. You see, 
Hoskins,” he continued, turning to his man, “I’m to 
meet Mr. Deacon Quelch, who is psychic. Now it’s 
impossible to tell what might be the effect of a sar- 
torial indiscretion upon a highly psychic mentality. 
You follow me?” 


223 


224 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“Not exactly, my lord.” 

“There must be much comfort in a pose,” said 
Beresford. 

Drewitt took a cigarette from the box, lit it, 
smiling at his cousin over the flame. 

“Realities are uncomfortable bedfellows, Rich- 
ard,” he remarked. “Have you ever studied the 
night-side of London?” 

“A bit,” acknowledged Beresford. 

“Can you imagine what it would be on lemonade 
and dry ginger-ale?” 

“So your pose is to you what alcohol is to vice?” 

“My finished demeanour as a man of the world,” 
corrected Drewitt, “is to me what drink is to im- 
morality. It prevents me from getting tired of 
myself. And now for Mr. Deacon Quelch.” He 
passed out of the room, reappearing a few minutes 
later ready for calling. 

“Now, Richard, I am, as good old Sir Thomas 
says, ‘ready to be anything in the ecstacy of being 
ever.’ I hope you are always careful in crossing 
the road,” he said, as he took the hat and stick Hos- 
kins handed to him. 

“Crossing the road, my lord?” 

“I mean that you take no undue risks. Remem- 
ber, Hoskins, your life is not your own. It is in- 
extricably linked up with my destiny, the link being 
your coffee. Now, Richard, I am at your service.” 

As they were about to enter the Belle Vue, they 
were conscious of a strange figure just in front of 
them. 


THE NINE DAYS ENDED 225 

“Mr. Deacon Quelch,” murmured Drewitt, in a 
low voice. 

Beresford nodded, and they entered just behind 
Mr. Quelch. 

As they waited while their names were taken up, 
Beresford and Drewitt sat watching the figure of 
their fellow-guest. He was a curiously furtive-look- 
ing creature, rather above middle height, with bulgy 
boots, baggy trousers and a shapeless frock-coat. 
On his head he wore a top-hat that had worn itself 
to a frenzy of despair, its glossiness no longer 
amenable to anything but liquid persuasion. His tie 
was a voluminous dab of black, and his waistcoat a 
combination of green and purple, with a broad, 
black braid border. His cuffs started forward hys- 
terically from the sleeves of his coat, and had 
obviously to be kept in place by the wrists being car- 
ried at a definite angle. He looked hungry and 
obsequious. Apparently he did not remember 
Drewitt, as he made no sign of recognition. 

A flurry of skirts and a stream of talk announced 
the arrival of Mrs. Crisp. Lola followed a few 
paces behind. 

“Ah ! here you are. All arrived together. Dear 
Mr. Quelch. How charming of you to come. Lord 
Drewitt, and Mr. Berry. Lord Drewitt, Mr. 
Deacon Quelch. You ought to know each other. 
How stupid of me, you’ve met.” She trailed off 
into a string of interjections; Drewitt and Beres- 
ford turned to greet Lola, and the party walked 
towards the dining-room. 


226 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


Lola’s frock reminded Beresford of the dense 
plumes of smoke from the chimney of a newly-stoked 
furnace. A touch of colour was supplied by a row 
of orange beads round her neck. Her movements, 
the carriage of her head, her general bearing 
were 

“And how is your chest, Mr. Berry?” Mrs. 
Crisp suddenly turned her jet upon Beresford. 
“Have you tried camphorated-oil? So good for a 
cold. I always use it, and liquorice too. Rubbed in 
night and morning. Oil, I mean, not the liquorice. 
We’ve missed her so much, haven’t we, Mr. Quelch. 
Yes, you sit there and you here, Lord Drewitt,” 
indicating the seat next to Lola, “and you next to 
Lola, Mr. Berry.” 

“Why will people make life ugly with camphor, 
eucalyptus and peppermint?” said Lola to Beresford 
with a moue of disgust. 

“And flannelette,” interpolated Drewitt. “I had 
a great-aunt who spent half her money and all her 
time in making flannelette garments for harmless 
negroes. It’s such an impertinence.” 

“Are you serious?” asked Lola, turning to him 
doubtfully. 

“The negroes were,” said Drewitt. “I believe 
those garments produced a revolution.” 

“You are laughing at me,” she said reproachfully. 

“To place flannelette garments upon limbs that 
hitherto have been gloriously free is,” continued 
Drewitt, “as bad as ” 

“I see,” she laughed. 


THE NINE DAYS ENDED 


227 


Beresford took little part in the conversation. He 
was accustomed to having Lola to himself, and 
found it difficult to reconcile himself to sharing her 
with others. Mrs. Crisp fascinated him. He had 
never met any one of such undammable loquacity. 
Words streamed from her lips as water from a hose. 
A chance word would send her off at a tangent. 
Sometimes he found it difficult to control his features 
as, in her haste, she occasionally transposed the 
initial letters of two words, as, for instance, when 
complaining of the off-hand manner of one of the 
porters, instead of describing him as she intended as 
“nearly rude,” she informed Drewitt that he was 
“really nude.” 

“You must come to one of our seances,” she cried 
to Drewitt. “I’ve never known any one like Mr. 
Quelch, so psychic.” 

Drewitt screwed his monocle into his eye and 
gazed at Mr. Quelch with grave interest, as if he had 
been a specimen of some unknown fauna. Mr. 
Quelch fidgeted under the scrutiny as, by a dexter- 
ous movement of the backs of his hands, he read- 
justed his cuffs, which had slipped down. 

“Are you interested in psychical research?” 
enquired Lola, looking from Beresford to Drewitt. 

“I’m afraid,” said Drewitt, “that I’m too pre- 
occupied with the substance of this world to have 
time for the shadow of the next.” 

“But think, Lord Drewitt,” cried Mrs. Crisp, 
“you can talk to all your friends who have passed 
over. Only the other night my dear sister came. 


228 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


She was drowned. It was such a comfort. So fond 
of the water. She was quite a famous digh-hiver. 
So embarrassing, you know. The costume I mean. 
I should blush all over.” 

“I am afraid I could not take the risk,” said 
Drewitt. “One is at such disadvantage with a spirit. 
Fortunately in this world people have the grace to 
say behind your back what a spirit would most likely 
say to your face.” 

Mr. Quelch shook his head dolefully, as he laid 
his black moustache affectionately upon a spoonful 
of white soup. 

As Lola continued to chat with Drewitt, Beres- 
ford found his thoughts slipping back to the days 
at Folkestone. She seemed so different here from 
the gay, irresponsible girl he had known during the 
last three or four days of their stay. 

“Suicide is a harsh name for a disinclination to 
wear something that we have grown out of,” he 
heard Drewitt say. 

He looked across. Drewitt was toying with a 
saltspoon, whilst Lola was engaged in crumbling a 
piece of bread between her fingers. 

“Such a dreadful thing, suicide,” burst in Mrs. 
Crisp. “A man died in my bath at Brighton. At 
least, the bath I used. Thrut his coat one morning. 
So thoughtless for others. Some people read in 
them. So bad for the books, and they are so cross 
at the libraries if there is a page or two missing.” 
She turned to Mr. Quelch and proceeded to spray 
him. 


THE NINE DAYS ENDED 229 

“But surely you don’t think we have a right to 
take our own lives?” asked Lola, turning to Drewitt. 

“If any one gave you a hat that didn’t suit you, 
would you wear it?” enquired Drewitt. 

“Noooooo,” she said hesitatingly. 

“Then why should you continue to wear the 
mantle of existence when it doesn’t fit?” 

“But life is so different,” she protested. “It’s not 
ours to dispose of.” 

“Suppose Richard put a rhinoceros in your bath- 
room, would you hesitate to have it removed because 
it was not yours to dispose of?” Drewitt looked at 
her with a smile. 

“How absurd,” she laughed. 

“That,” said Drewitt, “is a feminine confession of 
defeat.” 

“Schopenhauer says that when the sum total of 
misery exceeds the sum total of happiness suicide is 
inevitable,” said Beresford, who had been listening 
with interest to Drewitt’s exposition on the ethics 
of suicide. 

“Never quote Schopenhauer to a woman, 
Richard,” said Drewitt. “If she’s heard of him 
she doesn’t like him; if she hasn’t heard of him she 
won’t know whether he’s a Bolshevist or a German 
helmet.” 

“But,” said Beresford, turning to Lola, “do you 
mean that when a man sees all that he most desires 
in life quite out of his reach, that he must go on 
making the best of things?” 


230 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“Certainly,” said Lola, with decision. “He 
should try and win what he wants, work for it.” 

“Do you see that little waiter over there?” asked 
Drewitt, indicating a curious little man with bulging 
eyes and a receding chin. 

Lola nodded. 

“Suppose he were to fall violently in love with 
you, Miss Craven,” he continued. “Suppose that 
you became absolutely necessary to him, and inspired 
his every thought and action. He saw you in every 
soup-plate, you got mixed up with the fish, flavoured 
the entree, crept into the roast. Suppose he were 
prepared to become a Napoleon of waiters for your 
sake. What ” 

“Oh! but that is so absurd,” she laughed. 

“But just now you said that a man must try and 
win what he wants.” 

“Oh, but I didn’t mean ” she paused. 

“When you make a statement,” smiled Drewitt, 
“you must always be prepared to have it carried to 
its logical conclusion. The waiter is the logical con- 
clusion of your statement, that all have a right to 
aspire to any and everything.” 

“But we have rather wandered away from sui- 
cide,” suggested Beresford. 

“On the contrary we are now approaching it,” 
continued Drewitt. “The little waiter spends every 
moment that is not occupied in collecting tips in 
showing his devotion to you, and endeavouring to 
obtain the object of his desires, your hand, Miss 


THE NINE DAYS ENDED 


231 


Craven. jJfe has ceased to mean anything to him 
without you. You follow me?” 

“I don’t,” she confessed. “I feel absolutely 
giddy.” 

“There are only two courses open to the waiter: 
one is to gain his ends, the other is to fail to gain 
his ends. If he fails, then you would deny him the 
soothing alternative of suicide.” 

Beresford waited eagerly for her reply; but Mrs. 
Crisp burst in upon them. 

“I’ve just remembered,” she cried; “it was at 
Bournemouth, not Brighton. So relaxing. It was 
the year that girl ran away with a man in a car 
over a cliff. So romantic.” 

“I wonder why you always speak as if nothing 
mattered,” said Lola, looking up at Drewitt, her 
head slightly on one side, her eyebrows puckered. 

“Do I?” He gave her a friendly little smile that 
he kept for his particular friends and intimates. 
“Perhaps it’s because I’m devoid of romance.” 

“But are you?” she asked seriously. 

“When I read Malory or Froissart I endeavour 
to picture myself touring the country on a cart-horse 
with a long pole, like an exaggerated boy scout, 
engaged in the rescue of forlorn maidens and the 
destruction of fire-eating dragons. I confess I 
cannot see myself doing it.” 

“But you approach everything from the ridiculous 
aspect,” she said smiling. “Those stories always 
thrill me.” 

“Because you don’t see their artificiality,” he 


232 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


replied. “You see only the handsome and gallant 
knight seated on a swift charger, risking his life; 
but when you remember that knights were sometimes 
plain, that their horses were heavy, lumbering crea- 
tures, and that their combats were no more deadly 
than a football-match or a glove-fight — * 

“Please don’t,” she laughed. “You would strip 
romance from a honeymoon.” 

“To me a honeymoon is as unromantic as a 
German dinner,” continued Drewitt. “It’s the 
stripping of the tinsel from the idol. It is intimacy 
that ruins marriage, intimacy and carelessness.” 

“Carelessness?” she queried. 

“Yes,” replied Drewitt, polishing his monocle 
with great care. “I’ve heard of men selecting for 
a honeymoon a place that involved a sea voyage. 
The risk is criminal.” 

“I wish I weren’t so stupid,” she said in mock 
despair. “What risk?” 

“The risk of your adored one having a queasy 
stomach.” 

“Oh, please don’t,” she protested. “What a 
dreadful expression.” 

“As the boat gets further from land, the beloved 
grows greener and greener, until at last she makes 
a bolt ” 

“Stop ! Oh, please, stop !” cried Lola. 

“I’m sorry if I have undermined your belief in the 
romantic,” said Drewitt, “but there are certain facts 
in life that must be faced.” 


THE NINE DAYS ENDED 


233 


“I’m afraid you’ll never see a woman with a 
lover’s eyes.” 

“On the contrary,” he replied, “I should see her 
always with a lover’s eyes. In an east wind, I should 
resent the redness of her nose, in the summer, the 
flaming patch on the front of her chest, symbolical 
of the kisses of June. Imagine, Miss Craven, what 
must be the feelings of a Romeo when he discovers 
that his Juliet has a bilious attack, or the agony of a 
Pelleas when he finds that Melisande wears false 
teeth, or again, think of the emotion of an Abelard 
on hearing that Heloi'se has chilblains.” 

Lola laughed; but before she had time to speak 
Mrs. Crisp broke in — 

“Such dreadful things, Lord Drewitt. I have 
them in the winter. Mr. Quelch has them also. 
Don’t you, Mr. Quelch? I’ve tried everything. 
They’re really most painful. Somebody once told 
me it was eating too much meat. And it’s so difficult 
to get. I believe vegetarians never have them.” 

“Vegetarians never have anything, Mrs. Crisp,” 
said Drewitt, “except babies, shapeless clothing, and 
garden-cities.” 

Mrs. Crisp laughed. Her laugh was a thing of 
startling suddenness. Half closing her eyes and de- 
pressing her brows, she gave the impression of one 
about to burst into tears. Beresford dreaded her 
amusement; it was so depressing in its expression. 

“Do you believe in romance, Mr. Quelch?” en- 
quired Lola, looking across at the medium, who had 
been singularly quiet throughout the meal, devoting 


234 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


himself to the more serious occupation of eating. 

Mr. Quelch shook a gloomy head. 

“There is no romance in heaven,” said Drewitt. 
“That is why marriages are made there.” 

“Romance as you understand it,” said Mr. 
Quelch, looking at Lola. “No ; the great romance is 
on the Other Side.” 

“The shady side,” suggested Drewitt; but Mr. 
Quelch again shook his head with an air of settled 
gloom, as he proceeded to attack the peche Melba 
before him. 

“Oh, dear!” said Lola, “everybody seems to be 
either gloomy or cynical. There’s auntie and Mr. 
Quelch half in the other world, and Lord Drewitt 
and Mr. Beresford trying to prick every bubble in 
this. Poor me,” she cried in simulated despair. “I 
feel like a child who sees its toys being destroyed 
before its very eyes. You make me feel I shall never 
have a beautiful idea or feeling again.” 

“My dear Miss Craven,” said Mr. Quelch, swal- 
lowing a lump of ice in such haste that his Adam’s 
apple darted about wildly, “my dear Miss Craven.” 

Drewitt gazed across at Mr. Quelch, who had 
once more become engrossed with his peche Melba. 

Beresford pictured Mr. Quelch dashing after 
Lola on the sands at Folkestone as he had done a 
few days previously. He smiled. 

“Why are you smiling, Mr. Beresford?” she 
asked. “Won’t you share the joke with us?” 

“Richard is a joke unto himself,” said Drewitt, 
unconsciously coming to the rescue. “He’s the only 


THE NINE DAYS ENDED 235 

ass in London who is conscious of his ears. Aren’t 
you, Richard?” 

“You speak as if you were really fond of the 
species,” she smiled. 

“I suppose I am,” admitted Drewitt. “I always 
have to stop and rub the muzzle of a donkey when- 
ever I see one.” 

A moment later she turned to Beresford and 
murmured, 

“I think it must run in the family; don’t you 
remember the other day you wanted to rub my 
muzzle?” 

“Rub your muzzle!” he repeated, as if not quite 
sure that he had heard correctly. 

“Yes,” she laughed. “When I said I was glad 
I was not a cow.” 

Before Beresford had time to reply they were 
drawn once more into the general conversation. 

“We’ll take coffee in the ginter-warden,” cried 
Mrs. Crisp. “So pleasant. I love music. You must 
come and talk to me, Mr. Berry. I’ve seen nothing 
of you. Now, Mr. Quelch.” 

Once in the winter-garden, Mrs. Crisp seemed to 
forget her desire to converse with Beresford, who 
sat watching the others talk. Lola made several 
ineffectual efforts to draw him into the conversation; 
but Mrs. Crisp continued to ignore him, devoting 
herself to Drewitt and Mr. Quelch. 

A sudden hush in the talk seemed to remind her of 
Beresford’s presence. She moved over to where he 
sat. 


236 . 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“I’ve just been scolding Lola,” she said, lowering 
her voice and with an artificial smile; “so indiscreet 
of her. Most indiscreet. What must they have 
thought at the hotel. I’m very cross with her. She 
should have come back at once. Poor Miss Brock. 
Such a great sufferer. She has it so badly in her 
legs.” 

What it was that Miss Brock had so badly in her 
legs Beresford was not to know, as Mrs. Crisp 
broke off to fire a short burst at Mr. Quelch. A 
moment later she turned once more to Beresford. 

“And I blame you, Mr. Berry.” Again Mrs. 
Crisp turned upon him an automatic smile of immac- 
ulate dentistry. “You should have sent her home. 
She’s so wrong-stilled. What must the servants have 
thought? And the papers? Such odious people. 
Journalists, I mean. I hope she didn’t bathe.” 

“I’m sure ” began Beresford, his head in a 

whirl. 

“So dreadful,” she continued without waiting for 
a reply. “So lacking in refinement. You never 
know when there’s a tan with a melescope. Odious 
creatures. I’m sure the Queen would disapprove. 
I’m told they sit there all day. The men with 
the telescopes, I mean. So sweet and gentle. 
Such a mother. Fancy bathing with strange men. 
She ought to have been more careful. Lola, I 
mean.” 

“But,” interpolated Beresford, “Miss Craven 
didn’t bathe.” 

“I mean staying down there with you. Mr. 


THE NINE DAYS ENDED 


237 


Quelch was shocked. I hardly liked to tell him. 

He’s so sensitive. I remember once ” Mrs. 

Crisp was interrupted in her reminiscences by 
Drewitt rising to go. She turned upon him full of 
regrets, gush and assurances that she was certain he 
was psychic. 

As he was shaking hands with Lola, Beresford 
managed to tell her that he felt a relapse coming on, 
and asked if she would spare him an hour or two. 

She shook her head, a little sadly, he thought. 

“I’m in disgrace,” she pouted, “and I must be 
nice to auntie to make up for Folkestone.” She gave 
him a mischievous glance. “I’ve been having such 
a lecture on the proprieties.” 

That was all. No word of when he was to see 
her. 

“I don’t know which I most dislike about Mr. 
Quelch,” said Drewitt, as they passed down fhe 
steps of the Belle Vue, “his name, his moustache, or 
his accent. I like cockneys; but not in frock-coats,” 
he added. 

Beresford smiled vaguely; but made no reply. 

“I wonder,” continued Drewitt, as they walked 
down Piccadilly, “why it is that all men with gen- 
erous moustaches seem to have a passion for thick 
soup.” Then after a pause he added, “Those with 
dark moustaches apparently prefer white soups, 
whilst those with light moustaches select the darker 
fluids. It’s interesting.” 

But Beresford was not listening. He was think- 
ing of the void he had just discovered in his life. 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


Hitherto he had been aware that the end was 
inevitable; but without actually visualising it. He 
had frequently thought about the time when every- 
thing would be — well, ended; yet somehow he 
seemed now to realise for the first time facts as they 
were. This, then, was the end. Folkestone had been 
just an episode, a nine days’ wonder. She 

“That’s the third time you have failed in your 
social duty, Richard,” said Drewitt, reproachfully, 
as he lifted his hat. “That was Lady Peggy Bris- 
towe.” 

“Damn Lady Peggy Bristowe!” snapped Beres- 
ford petulantly. 

“Certainly, if you wish it;” and Drewitt relapsed 
into silence. 

“I’m sorry, Drew,” said Beresford with a laugh. 

“I was afraid she might not approve of you, 
Dickie,” said Drewitt, in a tone that caused Beres- 
ford to look at him sharply. 

“She! Who?” 

“The aunt,” was the reply. “Aunts are the very 
devil; camels are love-birds in comparison,” he 
added as he hailed a taxi. “Now I’ll leave you. 
I’ve promised Bowen to explain to Lady Peter why 
vegetarianism seems to encourage polygamous 
instincts among its votaries,” and with a wave of his 
hand Drewitt entered a taxi and drove off. 

Yes, that was it, Beresford mused as he continued 
down Piccadilly. Mrs. Crisp disapproved of him 
and he was to be dropped — he was being dropped. 
Had not Lola refused to see him? Had not Mrs. 


THE NINE DAYS ENDED 


239 


Crisp’s attitude been entirely devoid of cordiality? 

Had not ? It was all over. He had been a 

fool to come back to London. He should have 
turned resolutely to the open road, and have tried 
to forget her. It was all due to that idiotic some- 
thing in him that he had never been able quite to 
analyse nor understand. Anyway, it was too late 
now. After all, what did it matter? 

He walked on aimlessly, following the path of the 
least resistance. When at last he looked about, he 
found himself in unaccustomed surroundings. On 
asking where he was of a tired little man in a still 
more weary-looking frock-coat, he was told Pimlico. 
The man regarded him curiously, as if to be in 
Pimlico without knowing it were unusual. It seemed 
to take Beresford quite a long time to disembarrass 
himself of Pimlico, and to reach a spot near Victoria 
Station where he found an empty taxi. 

Late into that night he sat, before him a sheet of 
paper on which were written a few figures. He was 
face to face with a problem — THE problem. 
There was still a week or two left, however, he 
decided, as he knocked the ashes out of his pipe and 
prepared for bed. 


CHAPTER XVII 


DR. TALLIS PRESCRIBES 

F OR hours Beresford had been sitting looking 
straight in front of him. It was past noon; 
yet the breakfast-things still lay on the table, 
just as the porter had brought them up three hours 
before. Twice the man had entered to clear away, 
only to be sent away by a curt shake of the head. 
The coffee was cold in the pot, the eggs and bacon 
lay a sickly-looking mess bound together by a grey 
film of chilled fat. 

On the corner of the table J / a pile of money, 
notes, silver and copper. Was it only that morning 
that he had counted it with eager fingers and tingling 
pulses? Eleven pounds four shillings and three- 
pence. 

The figures seemed to have burned themselves 
into his brain. For hours he had sat watching them. 
They were everywhere. They stared back at him 
from the opposite wall, they blinked at him from 
the ceiling, the clock ticked them into his ears, and 
they had eaten themselves indelibly into his brain. 

Did sailors feel like that when adrift in an open 
boat with the water-cask empty? He wondered. 
Presently his gaze left the opposite wall and lighted 
240 


DR. TALLIS PRESCRIBES 


241 


on the telephone instrument. For a second the 
flicker of a smile relieved the shadows. That was 
the link with Lola. But was there a link with Lola 
now? 

Eleven pounds four shillings and threepence ! 

It meant that the end was very near, was here, 
in fact. The shock of the discovery had numbed 
him. What a fool he had been. It was strange, 
though, how fate seemed determined to eat into his 
rapidly vanishing resources. There had been the 
expense of staying at the Ritz-Carlton, whilst Lola 

was at the Belle Vue. Such rotten luck, then ; 

but why trouble to build up the whole fabric of 
I; misfortune? From somewhere at the back of his 
mind he recalled a favourite phrase of the little 
cockney in his section, “Any’ow, that’ll settle your 
little ’ash, ole son.” That was exactly what was 
about to happen. His little hash was on the eve of 
being settled. 

Slowly out of the chaos of his disordered thoughts 
was being constructed the Great Determination. 
It was as if an anaesthetic were being administered. 
That little tube of morphia tablets he had brought 
back from France seemed to be for ever dancing 
about in his thoughts. At first he had struggled 
against it; but gradually he had been overcome, until 
now he was almost reconciled to the inevitable. The 
will to live was dropping from him like a garment. 
Everybody had a right to decide for himself. Had 
not a coroner said as much publicly, and he was the 


242 THE RAIN-GIRL 

high-priest of sudden death? Temporary insanity, 
that was what they called it, temporary 

Again his eye caught sight of the telephone. With 
a quick movement he caught up the receiver and, 
without pausing to think, gave the number of the 
Belle Vue. He would tell Lola everything. She 
would understand. He would work, yes, work and 
carry-on. 

A minute later he replaced the receiver upon its 
rest with a jar. She was still away. She had gone 
away — to avoid him. 

During the previous fortnight he had telephoned 
time after time — always to receive the same reply, 
that Miss Craven had gone away for a few days, 
or that Miss Craven had not returned. He had 
written twice; but again no reply. It had really 
been a nine days’ wonder, he had told himself a 
dozen times, and this was the end. 

What he had done during that fortnight he did 
not know. He was conscious of having gone out 
from time to time for meals; but for the rest, he 
was afraid of leaving the place, lest in his absence a 
message should come through from Lola. The 
porter had come to regard him curiously, so per- 
sistent had been his enquiries as to whether or no 
the man had received and forgotten some telephone- 
message he felt sure she must have sent. 

He had given instructions that letters were to be 
taken up to him immediately. He seemed to live 
in a constant state of expectation. The telephone- 
bell caused him to start violently, the sound of the 


DR. TALLIS PRESCRIBES 


US 


porter’s key in his lock would bring him to his feet 
with a suddenness that sometimes disconcerted the 
man. For a fortnight he had been living on the 
unsubstantial diet of hope. 

There was no doubt about it; Lola was determined 
to drop him. It was Mrs. Crisp, he told himself, 
she was responsible. It had been a fortnight of 
torture, a fortnight that had brought with it the con- 
viction that for him, Richard Beresford, nothing 
mattered but the Rain-Girl. 

A ring at the telephone caused him to start 
violently. He snatched up the receiver. 

“Dr. Tallis! Yes, show him up.” 

A minute later he was shaking Tallis cordially 
by the hand. 

“What luck,” he cried. “I’m awfully glad to 
see you.” 

He was conscious that Tallis was regarding him 
critically. 

“You’re not exactly a credit to me, young fellow,” 
he said as he dropped into a chair with a sigh of 
content. 

“I slept badly last night,” Beresford explained 
in self-defense. “I’ve — I’ve been to Folkestone 
” he broke off suddenly. 

“Folkestone!” 

“Yes, you recommended the place, didn’t you?” 

“You found her then?” he said, looking up with 
interest. 

“Found who?” enquired Beresford, with simu- 
lated indifference. 


244 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“Tell me about it,” he said quietly, and before he 
knew what was happening, Beresford found himself 
telling the story of his encounter with Lola in St. 
James’s Street and what had ensued. 

“And now,” he concluded bitterly, “she’s dropped 

me, dropped me into the bottomless pit of ” He 

look across at Tallis, the picture of hopeless despair. 

“I’m beginning to think you were right,” he said. 
“I ought not to have tried to drag you back.” 

Beresford shrugged his shoulders. 

“And now, what’s the next move?” 

“The deluge,” replied Beresford with a short 
laugh that caused Tallis to look at him narrowly. 
“I’ve just been taking stock of my finances. There’s 
exactly eleven pounds four shillings and threepence. 
I put it off day after day, and it’s come as a bit of a 
shock. Still,” he added reminiscently, “there was 
Folkestone.” 

“I’m not sure, young fellow, that I ought not to 
hand you over to the nearest policeman as a dan- 
gerous lunatic,” said Tallis. “What the devil’s 
going to be the outcome of this business I’m hanged 
if I know.” His tone was not so flippant as his 
words. 

“The outcome, my dear iEsculapius, is that for 
once in my life I have had a rattling good time.” 

“And now?” 

“There’s always that little tube of morphia tablets 
that I brought home from France,” he said with a 
laugh. 

“So that’s the present state of the temperamental 


DR. TALLIS PRESCRIBES 


245 


barometer,” said Tallis as he proceeded to stuff 
tobacco into his pipe-bowl from the jar on the table. 

For some time the two smoked in silence. To 
Beresford Tallis was always a soothing influence. 
He seemed to possess the faculty of forgetting the 
other fellow’s existence until spoken to. 

“I’m the very deuce of a mystery to myself,” 
Beresford said presently with a wry smile. “Some- 
where I suppose there’s a kink in me.” 

“You’re probably passing through the sturm und 
drang of romance,” said Tallis. “It’s the Renais- 
sance strain in you coming out.” 

“I wonder,” murmured Beresford meditatively; 
then after a pause he added, “You see, Tallis, no 
girl ever really meant anything to me before. I 
seemed always to regard them in a detached sort of 

way, just as Drewitt does. This is I wonder if 

you understand?” 

Tallis nodded as he gazed into the bowl of his 
pipe. Suddenly it struck Beresford that what made 
Tallis so easy to talk to was that he always appeared 
to be absorbed in something else, generally his pipe. 
It was much easier talking about such things to a 
man who did not persist In looking at you. 

“I seem always to have been waiting for some- 
thing to happen.” Fie paused and looked across at 
Tallis a little apologetically. 

“The latent spirit of romance.” 

Beresford looked at him sharply. 

“Goon,” said Tallis, catching his eye, “I’m 


serious. 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


246 

“I suppose that was it. I could never have got— 
have got to care about any of those I met at after- 
noon-teas, or dinner-parties, and as for the ” 

“Fluff,” suggested Tallis, as Beresford hesitated. 

“Well, as for them,” he shrugged his shoulders. 
“But look here, I’m talking the most unwholesome 
rot.” 

“My dear man, you are merely succeeding in 
being a self-conscious ass,” said Tallis casually, as 
he dug into the bowl of his pipe with his penknife. 
“As a matter of fact, for the first time since we’ve 
been acquainted, you’re beginning to talk sense.” 
He paused, folded up his knife and replaced it in 
his pocket. 

“We medicos find romance in unaccustomed 
places,” he continued a moment later. “It’s a seeth- 
ing spirit of unrest. Every one seems ashamed of 
it. I’ve discovered it in the most extraordinary en- 
vironments. With you it’s a case of the Dream- 
Girl.” 

“The Dream-Girl?” repeated Beresford. 

“Every mother’s son of us knows her; but she 
seldom materialises. When she does it’s generally 
as a sort of Lorelei.” 

“You’re a queer sort of fish for a doctor,” said 
Beresford with a smile. 

“We never admit of the feminine equivalent to 
the Fairy Prince,” continued Tallis, “yet at first we 
all have a Dream-Girl in our minds, later she’s 
blotted out; but that’s not our fault, it’s theirs — 
some of them,” he added as if as an afterthought. 


DR. TALLIS PRESCRIBES 247 

For some time they continued to smoke con- 
tentedly. 

“It’s strange you should have mentioned that,” 
said Beresford, at length. “I’ve often wondered 
if ” 

“What’s in you is in the rest of us, only most of 
us are not so honest about it. Wasn’t it Oscar 
Wilde who said that we men are all in the gutter; 
but some of us are looking at the stars. You’re 
looking at the stars, Beresford, that’s all.” 

“I suppose you’re right,” said Beresford a little 
doubtfully. 

“With you it’s the spirit of romance,” continued 
Tallis quietly. “If you had lived a few centuries 
earlier, you would have gone about the country on 
a horse with a ten-foot pole asking for trouble. You 
would have been a disciple of Peter the Hermit, and 
every other uncomfortable person who preached the 
high-falutin’. The only trouble is that you won’t 
face facts.” 

“What facts?” demanded Beresford, almost 
aggressively. 

“Well, for instance, that you’re head-over-heels 
in love with this girl and you’re afraid to tell her 
so. You expect her to make the running.” 

“Don’t be an ass.” 

Tallis relapsed into silence again. Several times 
Beresford looked across at him; but he appeared to 
have forgotten everything but his pipe, at which he 
pulled contentedly. 

“Do you seriously expect ?” began Beresford, 


248 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


when it had become obvious that Tallis was waiting 
for him to continue the conversation. 

“No, I don’t,” was the calm retort. 

“Then why ” began Beresford. 

“Because I’ve known you long enough to be con- 
vinced that you’re incapable of doing what to any 
one else is the most obvious thing in the world.” 

“You don’t know her.” 

“I’m beginning to suspect that you don’t either,” 
was the dry retort. 

“She was just good pals with me at Folkestone, 
because I was a sort of watch-dog,” said Beresford 
reminiscently. “Since then she has dropped me — 
gone away,” he added. 

“She’s probably become self-conscious owing to 
auntie having given her a wigging. You can always 
trust a woman to know how to touch another on 
the raw. A high-spirited girl suffers a good deal 
when told that she’s made herself cheap. In all 
probability that’s what her aunt managed to con- 
vey.” 

Beresford shook his head gloomily. Tallis 
merely shrugged his shoulders. 

“You didn’t see the way she looked through all 
those fellows at the Imperial,” he said, as if deter- 
mined to convince himself of the hopelessness of his 
position. “It used to wither them, all except that 
Jew chap with the Scotch name. He was too moist 
for anything to wither.” 

“Well, are you going to ask her to marry you?” 


DR. TALLIS PRESCRIBES 249 

“Good Lord, no!” cried Beresford, sitting up as 
if the idea had startled him. 

“Well, there’s a lot to be said for celibacy.” 

“Don’t be an ass,” growled Beresford. “You 
know I don’t mean that.” 

“Sometimes it’s a little difficult to discover ex- 
actly what you do mean,” said Tallis with a smile. 

“She thinks me different from other men ” 

“She always does,” drily. 

Beresford walked over to the fireplace and, with 
unnecessary vigour, proceeded to knock the ashes 
out of his pipe. Returning to his chair he reached 
for the tobacco-jar. 

“I don’t want her to think ” he began as he 

proceeded mechanically to fill his pipe, then he 
stopped. 

“That you’re after the money,” suggested Tallis. 
“Couldn’t you somehow manage to convey to her 
that she, and not her millions, is ‘the goods’?” 

“No, I can’t, and what’s more, I won’t,” snapped 
Beresford irritably. 

“That ten-foot pole again, young fellow,” smiled 
Tallis. “You’re going to sacrifice your only chance 
of happiness for an abstract code of honour. Well, 
it’s your funeral; but I’m sorry. What’s it to be?” 

“There are always the tablets,” said Beresford 
grimly. 

“Yes, there are always the tablets; but somehow 
I don’t think that would be the way to her heart.” 

“What do you mean?” demanded Beresford 
quickly. 


250 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“I think she’s of the strong-man school, the see- 
it-through-at-any-price, nail-your-colours-to-the-mast 
order, the little-midshipmite-business, you know. 
She’s the sort of girl that would never hear the name 
of that splendid chap Oates without a half-thought 
prayer. There are some like that,” he added cas- 
ually, as he pocketed his pipe and, selecting a ciga- 
rette from the box, proceeded to light it. 

“You’re not going?” asked Beresford, as Tallis 
rose and stretched himself. 

“Yes, I’m afraid I must toddle, my son.” 

“Don’t go for a minute. You were say- 


“Merely that you are making a mistake,” was the 
smiling reply. “But as yours is a nature peculiarly 
adapted to the making of mistakes, there’s nothing 
unusual in that. There are three courses open to 
you and, of course, you choose the wrong one.” 

“Three?” interrogated Beresford. 

“Marry the girl, clear out, and the tablets. 
You’ll end by clearing out, although you think now 
it’ll be the tablets.” 

Beresford looked at him for a moment, then 
laughed. 

“Have another whisky-and-soda,” he said. 

“No, thanks,” said Tallis, “I really must be off.” 

“You don’t understand,” said Beresford, as they 
walked towards the door. 

“I understand this much, that like all idealists 
you are obsessed by the thought of material obsta- 
cles. Well, good-bye, and the best of luck. If I 


DR. TALLIS PRESCRIBES 


251 


can do anything By the way, there’s a pal of 

mine, a ship’s doctor. He’s sailing quite soon. I’ll 
ring him up. He’ll get you a passage as purser or 
something. Here, I’ll write down his name.” 

Tallis drew a pencil from his pocket and wrote 
on the back of one of his own cards: — 

“Dr. Henry Seaman, 

S.S. Allanmore, 

East India Docks.” 

“Thanks,” said Beresford, taking the card; “but 
I don’t think I’m cut out for a purser.” 

“No, don’t ring for the lift, I’ll walk down. 
Bye,” and with a wave of his hand Tallis was gone. 

Beresford closed the door and returned to his 
pipe and chair, and the never-ending riddle, THE 
FUTURE. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


THE DELUGE 

W HEN a man is thinking epics it is difficult 
for him to compose an ordinary letter. 
Beresford leaned back in his chair frown- 
ing. For fully an hour he had been engaged upon 
the unequal struggle. On the table before him lay 
a number of discarded sheets of note-paper. Some 
broke off suddenly at the second line, others ran to 
the end of the first page, whilst one had actually 
turned the corner and showed two lines written upon 
the second page. 

Had ever man such a letter to write in all the 
world before? Why write at all? Just because 
he had behaved like an ass, there was no need to 
make a fuss about it, as if it were a reduction in 

his golf-handicap ; yet he must tell her, at least 

“Damn 1” 

With a great air of decision he seized the pen 
and, snatching a clean sheet of paper from the rack, 
wrote : — - 

“Dear Rain-Girl. ,, 

Then he paused. That was where he always 
paused. There were innumerable sheets of note- 
paper on the table that testified to the fact. He 
252 


253 


THE DELUGE 

bit the end of the pen. He felt like a man with an 
impediment in his speech, who all his life had been 
striving to say “good-bye”; but had never been able 
to get beyond the preliminary “gug-gug.” 

He added a comma after “Girl,” then he made a 
slight alteration in the tail of the “R”; finally he 
got going. 

For five minutes he wrote slowly and laboriously, 
then picking up the letter he read it deliberately, 
only to throw it down in disgust. It was difficult to 
strike the medium between the flippant and the sen- 
timental. He had a horror of appearing like the 
heroine of a melodrama bent on secretly leaving 
home, who for five minutes stands in a draughty 
doorway bidding good-bye to the furniture. No, 
there must be no self-pity in anything he wrote to 
Lola. 

After all, what did it matter how he expressed 
himself? All that was necessary was to tell her 
that he was ging away, and that in as few words 
as possible. Cnee more he selected a sheet of note- 
paper, this time with an air of grim determination, 
and proceeded to write slowly and without hesita- 
tion : — 

“It’s the end of the holiday, Rain-Girl. In a few 
hours I am going away — ever so far away. Good- 
bye; even a midsummer madness must end. It has 
all been rather wonderful. 

“R. B.” 

With great deliberation he reached for an en- 
velope, folded and inserted the note, stuck down 


254 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


the flap and addressed it. Then, leaning back in his 
chair, he sighed his relief. 

For the next half-hour his pen moved rapidly 
over the paper. Letter after letter was written, 
read and approved. He was engaged in putting 
his house in order. 

He found himself regarding everything with a 
strange air of detachment. It was as if it all con- 
cerned another rather than himself. Lola had gone 
out of his life — nothing really mattered now. 

It was futile to indulge in vain regrets. There 
had been a time when he felt that Fate had played 
him a scurvy trick in bringing Lola into his life at 
a time when she could mean nothing to him; but 
that was past. Now he was able to regard every- 
thing in its just relation to his own destiny. 

It was strange how easily the mind seemed to 
adjust itself to new conditions. He remembered 
how in France his first instinct had been one of 
fear, then had come indifference, a soul-numbing 
fatalism, finally caution, a sort of gun-shyness that 
had come with the full realisation of the awfulness 
of it all. Would the same mental processes mani- 
fest themselves now? He was certainly in the in- 
different stage. It would be horrible if, at the last 
moment, he were to hesitate. No, he mus«t cut his 
loss and clear out. 

“Dropping down the river on a nine-knot tide.” 
Somewhere he remembered having read the line. 
He had been struck with it at the time, now it pos- 
sessed for him a very special significance. At half- 


THE DELUGE 255 

past six on the morrow he would be “dropping 
down the river on a nine-knot tide.” 

That morning he had been down to the docks 
and arranged everything. He had signed-on 
aboard th q. Jllanmore as assistant-purser outward 
bound for Sydney. It was all through Tallis, 
What a splendid fellow he was. Dr. Seaman 
seemed to expect him and had arranged everything. 

He looked at his watch; it was half-past four. 
Rising, he picked up his hat and went out into the 
sunshine. Just why he did it he could not have 
said. He strolled along Regent Street, smoking a 
cigarette and enjoying the warmth. Opposite 
Gerard’s he encountered Edward Seymour, gazing 
about him with the air of a dog that is to be called 
for. Beresford recognised the symptoms. Ed- 
ward Seymour was shopping with Mrs. Edward, and 
had been left outside. 

Seymour nodded in his usual off-hand manner. 
Beresford decided that he looked more than ever 
like a sandy ferret. 

“Edward, you ought to meet Mr. Deacon 
Quelch,” he said. It was always amusing to spring 
irrelevant remarks upon Edward Seymour, who 
would take a parliamentary candidate’s promises se- 
riously. 

“Who’s he?” demanded Seymour, “and why 
ought I to meet him?” 

“His happiness, like yours, Edward, is linked 
up with the other world.” 

Edward Seymour screwed up his face, with him. 


256 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


always an indication that he was puzzled. At that 
moment they were joined by Mrs. Edward. 

“D’you know Deacon Quelch?” he asked, fol- 
lowing his unvarying rule of appealing to his wife 
for guidance. 

Mrs. Edward turned to Beresford, of whom she 
was always suspicious. 

“I was merely telling Edward of the joys of the 
hereafter,” he explained, “when Aunt Caroline has 
gone there, that is, and he is left with what she 
couldn’t take with her.” 

“Why don’t you get something to do, Richard?” 
Mrs. Edward felt safe in carrying the war into the 
enemy’s country. 

“But isn’t the Ministry of Munitions closing 
down?” he enquired innocently. 

Mrs. Edward flushed. 

“What are you doing here?” she asked quickly. 

“I’m going to buy some flowers,” said Beresford. 
He had just been struck with the idea of sending 
Lola a parting gift. 

“For Miss Craven, I suppose,” sneered Edward 
Seymour. 

Beresford smiled. “Good-bye,” he said, and lift- 
ing his hat he entered the florist’s shop. 

The flowers ordered and paid for, Beresford con- 
tinued his stroll, choosing thoroughfares where he 
was least likely to encounter friends or acquaintance. 
Finding himself at Baker Street he decided to spend 
an hour with the squirrels in Regent’s Park. It 
was very difficult, he decided, for a man to know 


THE DELUGE 


257 

how to occupy his last day in England. He felt 
like an excursionist who has come south to see the 
final of the football cup, and finds himself landed 
in London at three a.m., whereas the match is due 
to start at three-thirty p.m. 

At half-past six he was back at his chambers. 
For half an hour he glanced over the newspapers he 
had brought in with him, and then proceeded lei- 
surely to dress. By a quarter to eight he was ready. 
Picking up the letters he had writen, his gloves and 
stick, he walked down the stairs rather than ring 
for the lift. Giving the porter the letters and half- 
a-crown, he told him to have them stamped and 
posted. He then strolled slowly along Jermyn 
Street in the direction of the Ritz-Carlton, where 
he had booked a table for dinner. 

Sometimes at the thought of Lola a passion of 
protest would surge up in him; but he had by now 
reasoned himself to a state of almost ice-cold logic. 
That morning he had settled matters once and for 
all as far as his future was concerned. The Chal- 
lices were noted for their grim determination. His 
great-uncle, the Admiral, had been known as “Bull- 
dog Challice,” and in the Peninsular war old Sir 
Gilbert Challice had fought one of the most remark- 
able and tenacious rearguard actions in history, an 
action that had drawn grudging praise from Na- 
poleon himself. 

Yes; he had made up his mind, and he was going 
to see things through; at least, the old brigade of 


258 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


Challices should not have cause to feel ashamed of 
a mercenary descendant. 

The dinner was excellent, the temperature of the 
burgundy perfect. The maitre d’hotel, himself, 
supervised the service, and when at half-past nine 
Beresford rose from the table, he was conscious of 
a feeling of artistic content. Yes, he would run 
into the Empire. It would bring back memories of 
the old Oxford days, and those illicit excursions to 
London. 

He was not particularly interested in the perform- 
ance; such things, as a rule, rather bored him. He 
waited to the end, even for the pictures. As he 
passed out and joined the crowd moving slowly 
westward, he found himself wondering what Aunt 
Caroline would say, what the Edward Seymours 
would say to each other and to Aunt Caroline. 
What would old Drew think? 

He at least would be a little sorry, he 

“All right, sir, I’ll move on.” 

Beresford had almost fallen over a bundle of rags 
huddled upon a doorstep. 

“Here, hold out your hand,” he cried, struck with 
a sudden idea. Putting his hand in his pocket he 
drew out all the loose silver and copper he had and 
dropped it into the grimed and shaking hand that 
was extended. Then he passed on, conscious of a 
splutter of thanks behind him. He was not the 
only one up against things. 

What would Lola think? Would she be sorry; 
would she ? He gritted his teeth. Here had 


THE DELUGE 


259 

been the danger-point all along. Time after time 
she had presented herself to his thoughts, and he 
had shut her out. Once let her in, he realised, and 
that would be the end — the wrong end. As he 
reached the entrance to his chambers, for some rea- 
son that he was unable to explain, he turned and 
looked first up and then down Jermyn Street Yes, 
he was glad the tablets had not won. 

He pushed open the door. 

“There’s a lady to see you, sir.” 

The porter had approached unseen. Beresford 
looked blankly at his expressionless face. For a 
moment he was dazed. 

“I showed her up, sir. She could not wait down 
here ” 

“Showed her up where?” asked Beresford. Even 
he was conscious of the strange note in his voice, sug- 
gestive of surprise and curiosity. 

“In your sitting-room, sir. She’s been here 
nearly two hours.” The man moved automatically 
towards the lift and Beresford followed. “She 
wouldn’t give a name, sir,” he added, as the lift 
stopped with a jerk. 

A lady to see him. Of course, it was either some 
stupid blunder on the part of the porter, or else it 
was a dream. Ladies did not call The por- 

ter crashed open the gate. 

Beresford passed on to the outer door of his flat. 
A lady in his sitting-room. Wasn’t it Drewitt who 
had said something about a rhinoceros being in 


260 THE RAIN-GIRL 

Lola’s bathroom? Suddenly he found his pulses 
beating wildly. 

Lola! Was it With trembling fingers he 

took out his keys and fumbled to get the outer door 
open. Why was he so awkward, he who a moment 
ago had been calmness personified? Would the 
wretched key never find its way in and the door 
open? Ah! that was it. Closing the door quickly 
he took three steps, threw open the sitting-room 
door and there 

It was Lola! 

He stood staring at her, his jaw dropped, uncon- 
scious that his hat was still on his head. 

She rose from the big chair in which she had been 
sitting. How pale and slight she looked. He no- 
ticed that in her right hand was a letter. Yes, she 
was wearing the same black frock she had worn at 
Folkestone and — yes, red roses, too. He noticed 
that her cloak was lined with some tint of amber, 
or was it orange? Then suddenly his faculties re- 
turned to him with a rush. With a swift movement 
he threw his hat, stick and gloves on to a chair. 

“Lola!” It was a sob rather than a greeting. 

Suddenly there had come back to him with over- 
whelming force the realisation of what he had 
planned to do. He was like a man who has just 
realised that he has passed through some awful 
danger. It was the reaction. It was the great 
will to live, and going away would have been death. 
Where had he heard that before? Yes, he remem- 
bered, Tallis had prophesied it. 


THE DELUGE 


261 


“Lola 1” 

At the cry she had merely held out to him a let- 
ter. Mechanically he took it. It was the one he 
had written that afternoon and told the porter to 
post. 

“How ” he began. 

“I — I came back suddenly.” Her voice was al- 
most a whisper. “I felt that something ” 

She was swaying slightly. How deathly pale she 
was. She was going to faint. 

With a swift movement he clasped her in his arms. 

“Oh, my dear, my dear!” he whispered passion- 
ately, and the only reply was sobs that seemed to 
tear and rend her whole body. 

“But why, why did you ?” She looked at 

him, her lower lip quivering. 

“Wasn’t it better than becoming the Fortieth Ar- 
ticle?” he asked quizzically. 

A slight smile flickered across her face. She was 
lying back in the big leather-covered arm-chair, 
Beresford kneeling beside her. 

“It was so — so unfair,” she said. 

“Unfair?” he repeated. 

“Yes, to — to your friends; but you won’t now?” 
The look of fear was still in her eyes. 

“Don’t let’s talk about it, Rain-Girl,” he said 
steadily. 

“But we must talk about it,” she persisted. “We 
must. Promise me?” 

He was silent. 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“Promise me,” she persisted, leaning forward 
and putting her hand on his shoulder. “Give me 
your word that you won’t?” 

“You don’t understand.” 

“I do, oh! I do,” she cried. “Oh, you must 
promise, you must. I felt that something was the 
matter. I — that is why I had to come back. You 
must.” 

The first emotional tension somewhat relaxed, 
Beresford found himself wondering what was to 
happen. Suddenly he remembered the letter. 

“How did you get my note? I told the man to 
post it to-night.” 

“It was brought round by hand,” she said. 

A whirr from the mantelpiece caused him to look 
round. The clock was about to strike twelve. 

“Lola, look at the time. You mustn’t stay here.” 

“I shall have no reputation now,” she said with 
a wan smile. 

“I’ll take you back to your hotel.” 

She shook her head. 

“Dearest, you don’t understand.” He shook her 
in his eagerness. “You can’t stay here, it’s twelve 
o’clock.” 

“I know,” she said quietly. 

“But don’t you understand?” he persisted. 

“Ummmm,” she nodded her head. 

“Please get up and let me put your cloak on, I’ll 
take you round ” 

She shook her head decisively. 

“But ” began Beresford, and then paused. 


THE DELUGE 


263 


“Not until you promise,” she said quietly. 

“Promise,” he repeated dully. 

She nodded. 

For fully a moment he was silent, then in a very 
quiet, restrained voice he said, “I promise, Lola, to 
do nothing until I see you again.” 

“Honest Injun?” she asked, sitting up. 

“Honest Injun,” he repeated, then they both 
laughed. 

“But Pve signed-on as assistant-purser,” he said 
whimsically. 

“Signed-on!” she repeated with widening eyes. 

“Well, it’s really a sort of wangle,” he explained. 
“I shipped as assistant-purser. Tallis arranged it, 
Lola!” 

“Oh!” 

She drew back from him into the furthest corner 
of the chair behind her, covering her face with her 
hands. , 

“Lola, what is it; what’s the matter?” 

“Please, please go away,” she moaned, still 
shielding her face with her hands. 

“You must tell me,” he persisted. “What have 
I said; what have I done?” 

“I — I thought you were ” 

Suddenly light dawned upon him. 

“You thought I was going to ” he hesitated. 

She nodded, still with her hands before her face. 

“My God! and that is why ?” he began. 

“Oh! what have I done? what have I done?” 
she moaned. 


264 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“Listen, Rain-Girl,” he said quietly, kneeling be- 
side her. “That might have been the way out, but 
for Tallis. I told you about him.” 

Gently he drew her hands away; but she still 
averted her face. 

“Don’t you see what I ” she began, then sud- 

denly she drew in her lower lip as if to still its quiv- 
ering. 

“You must go home now,” he said gently, “and 
I must see you in the morning.” 

“But — but ” she began. 

“Promise you will let me see you in the morning,” 
he said. “You will?” 

“Yes,” she whispered faintly. ' 

Very docilely she permitted him to place her cloak 
upon her shoulders and then walked to the door, 
still with averted eyes. 

“Please — please try and understand,” she whis- 
pered. 

For answer he lifted her hand to his lips and they 
went out together. 


CHAPTER XIX 


THE MORNING AFTER 

L IKE the summer sun, Lord Drewitt retired 
late ; but as a corrective rose later. He pre- 
ferred to give the weather an opportunity 
of definitely establishing itself for the day. In his 
opinion none but a demagogue could take pride in 
early-rising in town or city. 

“There are only two reasons why a man should 
rise early in London,” he had once remarked, 
“breakfast and exercise. I take neither.” 

It was nearly twelve o’clock on the morning fol- 
lowing Beresford’s endeavour to determine his own 
destiny, that certain movements of the bed-clothes 
and murmurs from the pillow warned Hoskins that 
his master was reluctantly preparing to face another 
day. He became alert and watchful. 

After fully five minutes of muttering and move- 
ment, Lord Drewitt raised himself upon his elbow 
and looked about him. 

Hoskins took a step forward. 

“Hoskins, I believe you do it on purpose.” He 
dropped back wearily upon his pillow. 

“Do what, my lord?” enquired Hoskins in a voice 
so thin as to be almost a falsetto. 

265 


266 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“Look so infernally cheerful,” murmured Lord 
Drewitt wearily. “Why is it?” 

Hoskins radiated good-nature and happiness, as 
he raised his hand to smooth his already smooth fair 
hair, a habit of his. 

“I suppose it’s because I have nothing to worry 
me, my lord,” he said, dodging into the bathroom 
and turning on the water, re-entering the bedroom a 
moment later. 

“I wonder what you’d be like if you had two thou- 
sand a year, a title, and all the heiresses in two 
hemispheres hurled at your head.” 

“I should make the best of it, my lord,” he re- 
plied. 

“The best of it! Good heavens, man! how can 
you make the best of it?” demanded Lord Drewitt, 
as he sat up and proceeded wearily to stretch his 
arms behind his head. “How could you make the 
best of a woman with the face of a horse and a fig- 
ure like a Rubens Venus?” 

“I was reading the other day, my lord, that it’s 
all a matter of digestion.” 

“Then you shouldn’t read those damned cheap 
magazines. Wait until you are expected to marry 
an heiress. You will then find out that digestion 
has nothing whatever to do with it. You’re get- 
ting sententious, Hoskins; you’re getting confound- 
edly sententious. I’ve noticed it coming on.” 

Hoskins eyed his master imperturbably. He was 
accustomed to these morning monologues. Among 


THE MORNING AFTER 


267 


his associates he referred to them as “His lordship 
easing off a bit.” 

“Don’t you know ” demanded Lord Drewitt 

as he slowly and reluctantly swung his legs from 
beneath the bedclothes and sat on the edge of the 
bed. “Don’t you know that all progress, material 
and intellectual, arises from discontent?” 

“Yes, my lord, I believe so,” said Hoskins, “I’m 
putting out that new morning-coat and vest for to- 
day, my lord.” 

“Hoskins, you’re hopeless.” Lord Drewitt rose 
and proceeded once more to stretch himself. “Here 
am I discussing higher ethics, and you can’t rise to 
giddier altitudes than morning-coats and vests. 
You’ve probably been reading Carlyle.” 

Hoskins smiled good-humouredly, and Lord 
Drewitt disappeared into the bathroom, where for 
the next quarter of an hour his monologue was ac- 
companied by splashings and the rushing of water. 

“I remember,” he said, reappearing and slipping 
into the dressing-gown that Hoskins held out for 
him, “you once said that life held compensations. 
I know of only one, your coffee,” and he seated him- 
self at the small breakfast tray beside the bed. “It’s 
the only thing that preserves intact the slender thread 
of my life.” 

Hoskins beamed upon his master. 

“I think it was William Blake who said that a 
man’s soul is expressed in his work. Your soul, 
Hoskins, demonstrates itself in your coffee. I can 
forgive almost anything, even your damned opti- 


268 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


mistic expression of countenance, when I drink your 
coffee. Here, take them away, I don’t like them 
put on my tray,” he indicated the pile of letters that 
lay beside his coffee cup. 

Hoskins took away the offending letters and placed 
them upon the dressing-table. 

Lord Drewitt was possessed of a constitutional 
aversion from opening letters. “My executors 
have my sympathy,” he had once remarked; “they 
will also have the bulk of my correspondence — un- 
opened.” 

“There’s a letter from Mr. Beresford, my lord; 
it’s marked ‘Immediate.’ ” 

“You know I always refrain from opening letters 
marked ‘immediate’ or ‘important,’ ” said Lord 
Drewitt reproachfully. “It means that they are im- 
mediate or important only to the writers, and not 
to the recipients. Your knowledge of the world 
should have taught you that. You may open it, 
however, and read it to me.” 

Hoskins opened the letter and read:— 

“Dear Drew, 

“I’m off soon after dawn to-morrow, and I’m 
going to the colonies, perhaps further, who knows? 
You might tell Aunt Caroline. Sorry I hadn’t time 
to bid either of you good-bye. 

“Here’s luck to your nuptials. 

“Ever yours, 


R. B ” 


THE MORNING AFTER 


269 


“Nuptials! damned offensive term,” muttered 
Lord Drewitt, then a moment afterwards, as if sud- 
denly realising the purport of the letter he added, 
“Further than the colonies. What is further than 
the colonies?” he demanded, turning to Hoskins. 

“There’s nothing further than Australia, my 
lord.” 

“Isn’t there? That shows you’re an atheist. 
Here, hand me those trousers,” and Lord Drewitt 
proceeded to dress. 

Suddenly his mind had become alert, there was 
something in the letter that puzzled him, particu- 
larly taken in conjunction with the general trend of 
Beresford’s recent remarks about the future. 

With unaccustomed celerity he performed his 
toilet. Hoskins had never known him more quick 
or decisive in his movements, and marvelled at his 
unaccustomed silence. As a rule, during the proc- 
ess of dressing, Lord Drewitt reached the culminat- 
ing point of his “easing off”; but to-day he was si- 
lent, his only remark being to tell Hoskins to order 
the porter to ring-up for a taxi. 

Lord Drewitt’s habitual air of boredom had van- 
ished. In its place was a look of definite purpose, 
with something suggestive of anxiety. 

When eventually he drove up to St. James’s Man- 
sions, he discovered just in front of him a very small 
boy with an extremely large parcel swathed in thin 
brown paper. 

“Mr. Richard Beresford,” piped the lad. 

A porter came forward and took it from him. 


270 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“Here, be careful,” said the boy, “they’re flow- 
ers;” but the man did not appear to hear, having 
suddenly caught sight of Lord Drewitt. 

“Mr. Beresford in?” he asked. 

“Yes, my lord. Perhaps you’ll step into the lift, 
my lord, and I’ll take you up.” 

The porter followed with the parcel. 

“I suppose Mr. Beresford is in?” 

“Yes, my lord,” said the porter. “He has only 
just finished breakfast.” 

Lord Drewitt was well known to the porter, who 
had instructions always to show him up without any 
preliminary announcement. The man therefore 
opened the outer door of the flat with his key, and 
announced the visitor, at the same time laying the 
parcel upon the table, after which he withdrew. 

For a moment the two men gazed at each other, 
then with a sigh Drewitt sank into a chair opposite 
his cousin. 

“I have often wondered,” he remarked, “how 
you manage to live without Hoskins.” 

Beresford did not reply; but pushed across the 
cigarettes to Drewitt, who selected one with great 
care, lighted it, and the two continued to smoke in 
silence. 

“Lunching anywhere?” enquired Drewitt. 

Beresford shook his head and proceeded to undo 
the parcel. 

With great care he opened out the sheets and ex- 
posed a magnificent shower-bouquet of white and 
clove carnations, tied with broad myrtle-green rib- 


THE MORNING AFTER 


271 


bon. He had telephoned to the florist’s to send 
them to his chambers instead of to the Belle Vue. 

Drewitt looked across at his cousin as if it were 
the most natural thing in the world for a man to 
send himself an elaborate bouquet. Selecting an- 
other cigarette, he proceeded to light it from the one 
he had only partially smoked. As he turned to 
throw the discarded cigarette into the fireplace, the 
door opened and the porter announced — 

“Miss Craven.” 

At the sight of Drewitt, Lola started slightly, 
with a quick indrawing of her breath. 

For a moment she stood looking from one to the 
other. Suddenly her eyes fell upon the flowers. 

“How delicious,” she cried, then turning to 
Drewitt she enquired mischievously, “Did you bring 
them, Lord Drewitt?” 

“It is a time-honoured custom between Richard 
and myself,” said Drewitt, “never to call upon each 
other unaccompanied by elaborate bouquets of this 
description. I was just asking him to lunch with 
me. Will you join us, Miss Craven?” 

For a moment Lola looked irresolute, then turn- 
ing to Beresford, said — 

“Shall we, Richard?” 

Beresford started at her easy use of his name. 

“You see,” she added, as if forcing herself to 
get the words out, “it will be something of a cele- 
bration. We — we are engaged.” She was gazing 
fixedly at the flowers, her cheeks a-flame. 

“I — I ” began Beresford, firmly convinced 


272 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


that this was the most ridiculous dream that had 
ever descended upon him. 

“Then I shall take no refusal,” said Drewitt 
evenly, giving no outward sign of the chaotic state 
of his brain under these repeated hammer-blows of 
surprise. “I have to go round and see my tailor, 
and on the way I’ll engage a table at the Ritz-Carl- 
ton. If I’m a little late, don’t wait. You under- 
stand, Richard? I shall withhold my congratula- 
tions till then.” 

As he turned towards the door Lola looked up. 

“You — you are the first we’ve told,” she said a 
iittie tremulously. 

With a smile in which there was nothing of cyni- 
cism he held out his hand. 

“You’ll be very happy,” he said. Then after a 
pause added, “when you’ve educated Richard; but 
he has excellent taste,” allowing his eyes to wander 
on the table, “in flowers,” and with that he left the 
room. 

For fully a minute the two stood looking at each 
other. It was Beresford who broke the silence. 

“Lola, what have you done?” 

“I ” she looked about her a little wildly. “I 

suppose I — I’ve proposed to you.” Then she 
laughed, a strange, mirthless laugh. 

Beresford stepped across to her and led her to 
the chair just vacated by Drewitt. “Sit down, Rain- 
Girl,” he said gently; “I don’t understand.” 

He had once more gained control over himself. 

“You — you don’t seem at all pleased,” she swal- 


THE MORNING AFTER 273 

lowed in a way that suggested tears were not far 
distant. 

“Why did you tell Drew that?” he asked. “You 
know it’s not true.” 

“It is, it must be, it ” She stopped suddenly 

and raised her eyes to his as he stood looking down 
at her. “Some one saw me leave here last night.” 

“Good God!” he cried aghast. 

“And — and so I’ve had to save my reputation 
at your expense.” Her voice was unnatural, hys- 
terical. 

“Who was it that saw you?” demanded Beres- 
ford almost roughly. 

“Sir Alfred and Lady Tringe; they were driv- 
ing past as we were standing waiting for the taxi.” 

With a groan Beresford sank back into his chair. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked. 

“I didn’t want to worry you,” she said nervously. 

“Perhaps they didn’t see you,” he said hopefully. 

“They did,” she said with averted eyes. “Their 
taxi stopped to allow mine to draw up, and I saw 
Lady Tringe point us out to Sir Alfred. It’ll be all 
over London by dinner-time.” She looked at him 
from under her lashes as he sat, his arms hanging 
down each side of the chair, the picture of despair. 

“I’m sorry; but — but I had to do it. Are you 
very angry?” she asked tremulously. 

“Angry! I?” he enquired dully. 

He tried in vain to remember all he had told her 
the previous evening. The knowledge that she had 
not received his letters, or his telephone messages 


n 4 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


had been responsible. The sudden reaction had un- 
balanced him. Little had been said of the coinci- 
dence of two letters failing to reach her. Both had 
felt instinctively that the responsibility lay with Mrs. 
Crisp. 

“Please — please don’t be angry with me,” she 
said, and a moment later she had slipped from her 
chair and was kneeling beside him. The touch of 
her seemed to reawaken him from his trance. With 
a swift movement he caught and crushed her to him. 

“Don’t, for God’s sake, Lola, don’t. You- 

Oh, my dear.” He bent down and kissed her pas- 
sionately. 

With a little sound of content she clung to him. 
Suddenly he became rigid. “Don’t you see that it’s 
utterly — that it’s quite impossible — it’s ” 

“Don’t you think you might get to like me in — 
in time,” she enquired archly. 

“Lola, don’t you understand? I’ve nothing, lit- 
erally nothing to offer you. If Drewitt doesn’t turn 
up, I can’t even pay for the lunch. I haven’t the 
price of a cab-fare. I had my pocket-book stolen 
last night. I only discovered it this morning. I’m 
down, down and out,” he concluded with something 
of a sob in his voice. 

“And yet you could buy me those wonderful 
flowers,” she said. 

She leaned forward and buried her face in the 
carnations. Beresford watched her. Everything 
was coming back to him. Slowly the realization was 
being forced upon him that Fate was really taking 


THE MORNING AFTER 


275 

a hand in the game. Why should the porter have a 
friend at the Belle Vue? Why should that friend 
call in to see him soon after Beresford had handed 
the man his letters to post? Why should the eyes of 
the man from the Belle Vue happen to fall upon 
Lola’s letter, and, above all, why had he offered to 
take it back with him? Again, why had Lola given 
up her stay in Surrey and motored back to London? 

Then there was He jumped up and began to 

pace the room. 

“Don’t you see what I am doing?” She rose and 
snuggled into the corner of the chair he had just left. 

“What you are doing?” he repeated, stopping in 
front of her. 

“Yes,” she faltered. “I’m — I’m throwing myself 

at your head and — and ” she flashed him a 

tremulous glance, “and you won’t help me, not a 
little bit,” she drew in her lower lip,' then a moment 
after, covering her face with her hands, she huddled 
up in the corner of the chair. 

In an instant Beresford was on his knees beside 
her. 

“My darling; oh my dear!” he murmured, striv- 
ing to pull away her hands. “You know, you must 
know — you do understand, don’t you? Can’t you 

see how impossible it is, how — how ” he stopped 

miserably. 

“You’ve — you’ve compromised me and now you 
humiliate me,” she sobbed, her hands still shielding 
her face. 

“My dear — Rain-Girl — Lola — please don’t ” 


ns 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


He paused, incoherent in his anguish. “Oh, please 
— please don’t, Rain-Girl.” Again he strove to re- 
move her hands, but without success. She merely 
turned her head further from him. 

Beresford looked about him wildly, as if seeking 
for inspiration or assistance. What was he to do? 
What ? 

Suddenly she removed her hands — she was laugh- 
ing, yes, laughing right into his eyes. 

In his astonishment he sat back on his heels and 
stared, unconscious of the ludicrous figure he cut. 

“Oh, you do look so funny,” she cried hysterically. 
“Please get up.” 

Slowly he rose, his dignity a little hurt, then see- 
ing two tears trickling down her cheeks, he seated 
himself on the arm of the chair and drew her to 
him. 

“My dear,” he said gravely, “I’m — I’m — all — 
oh, everything’s so muddled up. I don’t know where 
I am — why I am. Sometimes I think I’m mad — I 
suppose I am really.” 

She looked up at him, a tired little smile softening 
the drawn, weary look of her face. 

“I’m so tired, Jerry,” she said, “I haven’t slept a 
wink, not a little, teeny one,” she added with a 
momentary flash of playfulness. “Please be nice to 
me. It’s been very hard,” she murmured; “so hard 
to make you like me.” She closed her eyes wearily. 

“My darling.” 

Beresford crushed her fiercely to him. 


THE MORNING AFTER 277 

“My darling,” he repeated, and bent and kissed 
her hair. 

Then in a torrent of words he told her everything. 
How he had come back to London to find her, how 
he had gone to the Ritz-Carlton expecting to see her, 
how he had tramped about the streets on the chance 
of encountering her, how he had pursued her to 
Folkestone and, finally, how he had welcomed the 
way out that he now shuddered to contemplate. 

“My dear!” she said when he had finished. “Oh, 
my dear!” 


CHAPTER XX 


LADY DREWITT'S ALARM 

I THINK my pride was hurt.” Lola looked 
across at Beresford with a faint smile. “You 
see,” she continued, “auntie was very cross 
with me and she said things about what men think of 

girls who — who ” she broke off. 

“But why did you go away without a word?” he 
asked. “I thought — oh! it was hell, just hell.” 

“My dear!” Her eyes contracted as she looked 
at him, and he saw tears in their depths. 

“Don’t you think that you might have rung me 
up the next morning?” she asked gently. 

“After the luncheon?” he queried. 

She nodded. 

“I did; but you were out.” 

“Auntie has gone away. I’m afraid I have been 
very ungrateful; but I had to — to say something 

after those — those ” She looked across at him 

helplessly. “Auntie vows she will never speak to 
me again,” she added. 

Beresford strove to disguise the relief he felt at 
the news that Mrs. Crisp was to go out of Lola’s 
life. To change the subject he suggested that they 
should call on Lady Drewitt that afternoon and tell 
her their news. 


278 


LADY DREWITT’S ALARM 279 

“Oh! yes, let’s,” she cried eagerly, her eyes 
sparkling. 

“But who’s to pay for the lunch?” he asked gloom- 
ily. “Drew has evidently forgotten us, and I 
literally haven’t a penny. I had five pounds in my 
pocket-book.” 

Her eyes danced with fun. 

“You’ve got to begin living on me, Jerry,” she 
cried. 

“Don’t!” There was something in his voice that 
caused her mood instantly to change. 

“Oh, my dear!” she cried, “you mustn’t feel like 
that.” 

For some moments there was silence, Beresford 
gazing gloomily at the end of his cigarette, she 
watching him anxiously. 

“Why do you call me Jerry?” he asked at length, 
looking up and smiling at her a little wanly, she 
thought. 

“I’ve always called you that in my own mind,” 
she said. “Ever since I was sitting on that gate and 
you laughed.” 

“But why?” he persisted. 

“I don’t know,” she shook her head vigorously. 
“You’ll learn never to ask me why,” she added, with 
a swift upward glance from under her lashes. “I’m 
the maddest creature that ever was, once I let myself 
go.” Then with a swift change of mood she burst 
out, “Oh, Jerry, do try and understand me ! No one 
ever has, and don’t, please don’t, ever hurt me.” 
She looked across at him with eager, pleading eyes. 


280 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“You see,” she added, “I don’t understand myself, 
not the weeniest bit in the world.” 

He smiled, still unable to realise the strange jug- 
glings of fate by which he had become possessed of 
this wonderful creature. A few hours previously he 
had almost consigned himself to the Great Adven- 
ture; now he was about to embark on what promised 
to be an even greater adventure. It was all too 
strange, too mysterious, too bewildering for a man’s 
brain to assimilate in a few short hours. 

“Now,” she cried, “go and get your hat.” 

“I can get it as I go out, Rain-Girl,” he said. 

“Go — and — get — your — hat,” she repeated, em- 
phasising each word. 

“But ” he began. 

“Jerry!” This in such a comical tone of admo. 
nition that, laughing in spite of himself, he rose and 
walked towards the door. 

Swiftly Lola beckoned the waiter, paid the bill, 
and was at Beresford’s side just as the man was 
handing him his stick. 

Turning, he looked at her and suddenly realised 
why it was that he had been sent away. 

“Rain-Girl,” he whispered, “I think we shall b* 
very happy when — when I get used to it.” 

“Am I as bad as that?” she enquired. “It sounds 
like a new pair of boots.” 

“Will you stand me a taxi?” he asked. 

And then she knew she had won. 

In the taxi neither of them spoke. Beresford was 
still dazed by the rapidity with which events had 


LADY DREWITT’S ALARM 


281 


succeeded one another. He was conscious of a 
desire to get away to some wind-swept moor where 
he could think things out for himself. A few hours 
ago Lola had seemed to him as far away as the 
stars; now owing to one of fate’s strangest freaks, 
she was his. He felt as a navvy might feel on 
having thrust into his arms the crown jewels of 
England. What would he do? Probably stand and 
stare at them in open-mouthed bewilderment. Per- 
haps He caught Lola’s eye upon him. 

‘‘It’s no good, Rain-Girl,” he said, “I can’t realise 
it.” 

“Realise what?” she questioned. 

“It, everything. This is not a real taxi,” he con- 
tinued. “You are not a real Rain-Girl. I am not a 
real I. I’m just like the navvy.” 

“Like the what?” she asked with puckered brows. 

He explained the allusion. 

She laughed. 

“Is that why you suggested Lady Drewitt?” she 
asked. “I think she’ll be good for you, Jerry.” 

At that moment the taxi swung in towards the 
pavement and drew up with a squeak. Beresford 
got out. 

“Tell him to drive to the Belle Vue,” said Lola. 

“But ” he began looking at her in surprise. 

“No,” she said, shaking her head with decision. 
“I’m not coming in. Lady Drewitt will bring you 
back to earth.” 

For a moment he hesitated, showing the disap- 
pointment he felt, then conscious that the door of 


282 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


Lady Drewitt’s mansion had been thrown open by 
the watchful Payne, he gave the taxi-driver the 
address, lifted his hat, and walked slowly up the 
steps. 

“Her ladyship at home, Payne?” he enquired in 
a voice that convinced the butler he was unwell. 

“I’ll enquire, sir,” said Payne, and he disappeared 
in the direction of the morning-room. 

A minute later Beresford was apologising to Lady 
Drewitt for so early a call. 

“Sit down, Richard,” she commanded. She was 
always at her best in the morning-room, Beresford 
thought, sitting upright in her chair like an Assyrian 
goddess, an expression on her face as implacable as 
that of Destiny. “What is it?” she demanded. 

“Personally I think it’s a dream,” he said as he 
took the chair on which Lady Drewitt had fixed 
her eyes. 

“What is the matter with you, Richard?” To 
Lady Drewitt, all deviations from the normal were 
suggestive of illness. v 

Suddenly some spirit of mischief took possession 
of him. 

“Well, Aunt Caroline,” he began hesitatingly, 
“I’m afraid I’ve got myself into ” 

“What have you been doing?” There was both 
anxiety and asperity in Lady Drewitt’s tone. 

“Well, it’s rather serious,” he began; “Pm afraid 
you’ll ” 

“What — have — you — been — doing?” demanded 


LADY DREWITT’S ALARM 


283 


Lady Drewitt, in a tone suggestive -of the great 
restraint she was exercising over her emotions. 

“I hardly like to tell you,” he temporised, seeing 
in his aunt’s eyes fear, fear lest he, Richard Beres- 
ford, had done anything that would compromise her 
and the family. 

“Richard, I insist ori your telling me what has 
happened.” 

“I’m goingto get married,” he said. 

“Married!” 

What it was that happened Beresford was never 
quite able to determine; but Lady Drewitt’s figure 
seemed to undergo some strange convulsion, causing 
her chair to recede at least two inches and she with 
it. Never had he seen surprise manifest itself so 
overwhelmingly. She sat staring at him as if he 
had suddenly changed into a camelopard or a four- 
winged griffin. 

“You see,” he began apologetically, “I’m twenty- 
eight and you are always urging Drew to marry.” 

“Going to get married!” repeated Lady Drewitt, 
as if she had not yet properly realised the significance 
of the words. “Who — who are you going to 
marry?” Again there was the note of fear in her 
voice. 

“She ” he began with simulated hesitation, 

“she’s a girl I met on a gate.” 

“Met on a what?” almost shouted Lady Drewitt. 

“Oh, a gate,” he repeated evenly. “A thing that 
opens and shuts, you know,” he added, as if to admit 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


281 

of no possibility of misunderstanding. “It was the 
day I got pneumonia.” 

Through Lady Drewitt’s mind there flashed the 
thought of some designing country girl, who had 
entrapped her nephew. Probably she had helped 
to nurse him, had heard who he was and, convinced 
that his aunt would see he was well provided for, had 
determined to marry him. 

“Who is she?” With an effort Lady Drewitt re- 
gained her self-control, “and what was she doing on 
a stile?” 

“It was a gate,” corrected Beresford. “It led 
from the high-road into a meadow and ” 

“What — was — she — doing — on — a — gate ?” 
Lady Drewitt was not to be denied. 

“She was smoking a cigarette,” he explained, “and 
it was raining. That’s what struck me ” 

“But what was she doing there at all?” Lady 
Drewitt drew in her lips until nothing but a thin, 
grey line was visible. 

“She was tramping,” he explained, as if it were 
the most ordinary thing in the world for a girl to do. 

“A tramp!” cried Lady Drewitt, the full horror 
of the situation seeming to dawn upon her. “A 
tramp !” 

“It was rather a coincidence, wasn’t it?” he 
smiled. 

“You’re mad, Richard,” she cried, “you’ve al- 
ways been a fool; but now you’re mad.” She snapped 
her jaws with an incisiveness that made him shudder. 
“It must be put a stop to.” 


LADY DREWITT’S ALARM 


285 


“Put a stop to,” he repeated vaguely. “What 
must be put a stop to?” 

“Your marrying a tramp.” 

“But I don’t want to put a stop to it, and,” he 
added as an afterthought, “you might get to like 
her.” 

“Like her!” Lady Drewitt spoke in italics. 

“Perhaps it’s destiny,” he ventured with resigna- 
tion. 

“Fiddlesticks.” 

“But ” 

“I tell you, Richard, I will not allow this mar- 
riage.” 

“But suppose she were to insist. You see, she’s 
rather fond of me, Aunt Caroline.” 

“If she attempts to sue you for breach-of -promise, 
the case must be compromised.” Lady Drewitt 
spoke as if that settled the matter. 

Beresford smiled at the thought of Lola suing 
him for breach-of-promise. 

“They couldn’t fix the damages high,” continued 
Lady Drewitt, irrevocably pursuing her own line of 
reasoning. “You’ve got no money.” 

“As a matter of fact I was going to ask you to 
lend me two shillings for a taxi-fare,” he said 
gravely; “I literally haven’t a penny.” 

“And yet you propose to marry. Are you mad, 
Richard? Are you really mad?” She leaned for- 
ward slightly as if to enable herself to determine 
with greater certainty whether or not her nephew 
had entirely lost his reason. 


288 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“I’m sorry that you disapprove of my marriage,” 
he said meekly. “I’ve always tried to please you.” 

“You’ve done nothing of the sort, and you know 
it.” 

“I’ve always tried to please you,” he continued 
imperturbably; “but I’ve always failed.” 

“You have.” She nodded her head grimly. 

“I felt that I ought to tell you. I’m sorry if it 
annoys ” 

“You’ve done nothing but annoy me ever since 
you were born,” was the angry retort. “You were 
a most tiresome child. Your poor, dear mother 
would insist on giving you the most unhealthy toys.” 

“Unhealthy toys?” 

“Yes, Noah’s Arks and things with paint on them, 
and you licked off the paint and were always Horribly 
ill afterwards.” 

“I suppose that’s what’s the matter with me now,” 
he murmured. “I’ve been licking off the paint from 
the conventional ideas of happiness, and it’s made me 
horribly ill.” 

“Don’t talk nonsense,” commanded Lady Drewitt. 
“What are you going to do?” 

“Marry her, I suppose. I see no way out of it.” 

For a full minute Lady Drewitt regarded him 
suspiciously. 

“So,” she said at length, a note of triumph in her 
voice, “you are already regretting your folly. Was 
it through this girl that you came to London?” 

“I’m afraid it was.” He gazed down at the point 
of his cane. 


LADY DREWITT’S ALARM 


287 


“Where are you staying now?” 

“To-night I’m afraid it will be Rowton’s Lodging 
House, if I can borrow sixpence from Drew.” 

For a moment Lady Drewitt gazed at him irreso- 
lutely, then reaching across to a table at her side, she 
turned the key in the drawer and opened it. From 
inside she took a case containing one-pound notes, 
selected two and held them out to Beresford. 

“No, Aunt Caroline,” he said, shaking his head 
as he rose, “although it’s very good of you. Perhaps 
when I’m married you might stand godmother— — ” 

“Richard!” There was such poignant horror in 
her voice that he felt a little ashamed of himself. 

“I’m afraid I must be going now,” he said. 

“I want to know where I can find you?” There 
was a note in her voice that convinced him she was 
evolving a plan to save him from Lola’s clutches. 
“I shall telephone to Drewitt.” 

“He knows.” 

“What did he say?” 

“He made some remark about marriage being the 
reckless assumption of another man’s responsibility.” 

“Where shall you be staying?” Lady Drewitt was 
not to be diverted from her purpose. 

“St. James’s Chambers in Jermyn Street will 
always find me,” he replied. 

Lady Drewitt continued to gaze at the door long 
after it had closed behind her nephew, whom she 
was convinced was mad. 

“Payne,” said Beresford, as the butler came out 


288 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


of the pantry, “how is your rheumatism, and will 
you lend me sixpence?” 

“Will I lend you sixpence, sir?” repeated Payne, 
in astonishment. 

“I asked you two questions, Payne. How is your 
rheumatism, and will you lend me sixpence? You 
merely repeat the second; that is very feminine.” 

The butler regarded him with a startled expres- 
sion. 

“The rheumatism, sir, is — is a little better to-day, 

and ” From his trouser-pocket he drew out a 

handful of silver and hesitatingly extended it. 

Selecting sixpence Beresford pocketed it with 
great deliberation. 

“Now a pencil and a piece of paper,” he said, 
“only be quick, because I’m in a hurry.” 

Payne trotted off to the pantry, re-appearing a 
few minutes later with the required articles. 

Beresford wrote: “I.O.U. the sum of sixpence, 
Richard Beresford.” 

“That,” he remarked, handing the paper to Payne, 
“is as good as a banknote. You can distrain upon 
my estate, or make your claim against my executors, 
administrators or assigns. Thank you, Payne.” 

Just as Beresford turned to the door that Payne 
proceeded to open for him, he was conscious of Lady 
Drewitt coming out of the morning-room. She had 
obviously heard his last remark. 

At the corner of Curzon Street Beresford hesi- 
tated. Lola had told him that she would not be back 
at the Belle Vue until late. He therefore decided 


LADY DREWITT’S ALARM 


289 


to call in at the club in the hope of finding his cousin. 
On entering the smoking-room he discovered Drewitt 
in the clutches of Sir Redman Bight, who was ex- 
plaining to him in great detail why woman could 
never become a determining factor in political life. 

In his cousin Drewitt saw the straw at which the 
drowning man is supposed to clutch. With a mut- 
tered apology to Sir Redman, he crossed to where 
Beresford stood. 

“Richard,” he said, as he reached his side, “if 
ever you require anything of me, even unto half my 
possessions, remind me of this moment.” 

Beresford led the way to the further corner of the 
room. 

“The dental-chair, foot-and-mouth-disease, rabies, 
and universal suffrage, all have their place in life’s 
chamber of horrors,” murmured Drewitt, sinking 

.into a chair, “but Sir Redman Bight ” he broke 

off. 

“Never mind about Bight,” said Beresford. 

“In this club,” continued Drewitt, “every man 
seems to have a theory upon something or other. 
Only yesterday I was talking to Sir Damville Brack- 
ett, at least Sir Damville Brackett was talking to me, 
and as far as I could gather, his view appeared to 
be that the real cause of the present labour unrest 
is directly traceable to golf, and the fact that both 
players do not use the same ball as in footer. He 
really was quite interesting about it. But of your- 
self, Richard?” 

Beresford proceeded to outline what had taken 


290 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


place. By the time he had finished the waiter had 
brought the two whiskies-and-sodas Drewitt had 
ordered. 

“By the way,” said Beresford, as he replaced his 
glass on the table at his side, “why didn’t you turn 
up at lunch?” 

“There are occasions, Richard,” drawled Drewitt, 
“when you are as obvious as Streatham Common, 
or a Labour M.P.” 

“I see,” nodded Beresford, “but I hope you 
realise that you left Lola to pay for the lunch.” 

“As bad as that?” 

“I hadn’t a sou on me.” 

“It’s always a mistake to try and help young 
lovers,” said Drewitt with resignation. 

“I had to borrow sixpence from Payne to get 
here,” said Beresford. “I gave him an I.O. U. for 
It.” 

“My dear Richard.” Drewitt leaned forward 
with interest. “I wish you would tell me how you 
got here for sixpence. I’ve never been successful in 
getting anywhere for sixpence, although I frequently 
try. Once I tried to get from Piccadilly to Victoria 
by omnibus, and got to Hampstead for fivepence; 
but as it cost me four shillings for a taxi to get back, 
I couldn’t really consider that a fair test.” 

At that moment a page approached, telling 
Drewitt that he was wanted on the telephone. 

“Page,” he said, looking at the boy reproachfully, 
“haven’t I repeatedly told you that I’m never here?” 

“Yes, my lord,” piped the boy, looking up into 


LADY DREWITT’S ALARM 


291 


Drewitt’ s face with a pair of innocent blue eyes, 
“but the lady told me to come and tell you that she 
was Lady Drewitt.” 

“Page, such ingenuousness is wasted at the Diplo- 
matic Club, you were meant for the Church,” and 
with a look of reproach at Beresford, he walked 
towards the door, followed by the grinning page. 

For nearly a quarter of an hour Beresford smoked 
contentedly, pondering over this new phase in his 
affairs. When at last Drewitt returned, he sat for 
fully a minute regarding his cousin. 

“Richard,” he said at length, “you have achieved 
what I’ve been striving after for years.” 

Beresford looked at him with raised eyebrows. 

“For the first time in her existence the aunt is 
experiencing real anguish of soul, and you are the 
cause. I congratulate you.” 

Beresford smiled; but made no comment. 

“Incidentally she informed me that you are about 
to contract an alliance with a gipsy. I assured her 
that I would endeavour to dissuade you, as I already 
possess all the mats, brooms and wicker-chairs that 
I require, much as I should like to encourage you in 
your new vocation.” 

“What did she say?” enquired Beresford lazily. 

“She said things, Richard, that should not be 
allowed to pass over even a private-line connecting 
a woman’s club with the Suffragette Headquarters. 
She stripped life of its adornments, attacked Lloyd 
George and the Kaiser with marked impartiality. 
She deplored the rise of democracy and the payment 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


292 

of M.P.’s. She reproached Nature for her obsolete 
methods in providing for the continuance of the race. 
She held up to the open light of day your iniquitous 
conduct in proposing to marry a road-girl. She 
implied that I was responsible for your determina- 
tion, stating in clear and unambiguous terms that I 
exercise an evil influence upon you. She suggested 
that no man could know me without wanting to 
marry a road-girl, tramp or whatever it was she had 
in mind.” 

Drewitt paused to sip his whisky-and-soda. With 
a -sigh of weariness he continued: 

“She asked me if she were expected to keep you 
and your wife to-be, together with any infantile com- 
plications that might arise out of the union. I 
assured her that I was not in your confidence to that 
extent. Then in a voice that caused the wire to throb 
she asked who was to keep you and your vagabond 
wife; the expression is hers. Personally, I dis- 
claimed any such intention, pointing out that it would 
be neither delicate nor decent for a peer of the realm 
to keep another man’s wife. It was at this juncture 
that she accused me of coarseness and a lack of that 
refinement which, as far as I could gather, forms the 
most attractive bait for unsophisticated heiresses.” 

Drewitt paused to light a cigarette and once more 
sip his whisky-and-soda. 

“At last,” he continued, “I had to remind her that 
this was the Diplomatic Club, where no one ever 
speaks his mind or conveys facts except in a form 
disguised beyond all recognition. Finally, she or- 


LADY DREWITT’S ALARM 


293 


dered me to seek you out and restrain you. Now, 
Richard, speaking as man to man, and as friends, 
not to say cousins, how do you think I had better 
proceed to restrain you?” Fixing his glass more 
firmly in his right eye, Drewitt leaned back in his 
chair and surveyed Beresford. 

“I think I’ll push off now, Drew,” he said, laugh- 
ing as he rose. “By the way, I’m dining with Lola 
at the Belle Vue to-night, why not come?” 

“I’ve been ordered to dine at Curzon Street; but 
I’ll run in on my way back to the club,” he replied. 
“I think I’ll come with you now. I can see old Sir 
Redman has got his eye on me.” 

At the door of the club they parted, Drewitt turn- 
ing west and Beresford walking up Piccadilly in the 
direction of Jermyn Street. 


CHAPTER XXI 


LORD DREWITT: AMBASSADOR 

I 

I THINK you have been very cruel, Jerry.” 
Lola looked at Beresford reproachfully, then 
suddenly turned her head aside, conscious 
of a twitching at the corners of her mouth. 

They were sitting in the winter-garden of the Belle 
Vue after dinner, and Beresford had just finished 
telling her of his call upon Lady Drewitt. 

“Cruel!” he repeated uncomprehendingly. “How 
cruel?” 

“Don’t you see what it would mean to her if 
?” she broke off. 

“But she hasn’t got to live with you,” he pro- 
tested. 

She lowered her eyes, and a faint blush stole into 
her cheeks. 

“It was cruel,” she said quietly; “it was very cruel 

and — and ” Again the corners of her mouth 

twitched in spite of her efforts to control them. 

“I know what you were going to say,” he cried 
boyishly. 

“No you don’t.” 

294 


LORD DREWITT: AMBASSADOR 295 

“Yes I do. Will you bet?” 

She nodded. 

“How much?” 

“Five pounds.” 

“Right.” 

“What was it, then?” asked Lola. 

“That I left Aunt Caroline to liquidate my I.O.U. 
to Payne.” 

She opened her bag and proceeded to count out 
five one-pound treasury notes. 

“Rain-Gp:l, don’t.” 

She looked at him keenly, startled at his tone, 
and saw the hard, set expression in his eyes. 

“But it was a bet.” 

“Please don’t,” he said earnestly; “at least, not 
yet. I know it’s stupid; but ” 

She looked at him with smiling eyes. 

“You see,” he went on hurriedly, “Drew sent me 
round fifty pounds this afternoon.” 

“Very well, then, to-morrow I shall go round to 
Aunt Caroline and apologise for you.” 

He looked at her quickly, there was something 
oddly intimate in the use of the words “Aunt Caro- 
line.” She seemed to be drifting into her new rela- 
tionship with astonishing ease. He envied her this 
quality. For himself, he felt that if he were to live 
for centuries, he could never live down the humilia- 
tion of marrying a woman with money. 

“Shall we go on the river to-morrow?” he asked 
irrelevantly. 

“Oh yes, let’s,” she cried, clapping her hands. 


296 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“Lola,” he remarked severely, “you’re behaving 
like a school-girl.” 

“Am I?” she asked, her vivacity dropping from 
her; then a moment after she added, “I suppose it’s 
because I’m so happy. Oh, I’d forgotten.” 

“Forgotten what?” 

“We can’t go on the river to-morrow; I shall be 
calling on Aunt Caroline.” 

“Look, here’s Drew,” cried Beresford, jumping 
up. He had caught sight of Drewitt being conduct- 
ed towards them by a page. Having shaken hands 
with Lola he sank into a chair. 

“Yes, Richard,” he said, “you have interpreted 
me aright — coffee. How I wish Hoskins were 
here.” 

Whilst they were waiting for the coffee they 
chatted upon general topics. When Drewitt had 
fortified himself with two cups he turned to Beres- 
ford. 

“Richard,” he said, “have you given a full, true 
and particular account of your interview with the 
Aunt to-day?” 

Lola’s smile answered the question. 

“Then,” said Drewitt, turning to Lola, “I must 
ask you what sum you will require to release Richard 
from his engagement?” 

“What sum!” She looked at Drewitt in amaze- 
ment. 

“I’ve just returned from dining at Curzon Street,” 
said Drewitt; then turning to his cousin added, 
“Richard, you owe me an apology for that dinner. 


LORD DREWITT: AMBASSADOR 297 

It was one of the most uncomfortable I have ever 
eaten. The atmosphere of crisis seemed to have 
penetrated even to the kitchen. The sole was over- 
done and the quail wasn’t done at all, and the Aunt’s 
views upon romantic attachments were positively in- 
decent.” 

“Hadn’t you better begin at the beginning?” sug- 
gested Beresford quietly. 

“The Aunt seemed anxious that I should begin 
before the beginning,” he replied, “hence I am here 
for the purpose of settling with Miss Craven the 
amount she will accept to release you, Richard, from 
her clutches.” He looked across at Lola. Her 
cheeks were flushed and her eyes dancing with amuse- 
ment. “By implication I was given to understand 
that the responsibility for your faux pas , Richard, 
rested mainly with me.” 

“With you!” repeated Beresford, as he looked 
up from lighting a cigarette. 

Drewitt inclined his head. “If I had sought to 
exercise a better influence upon your early and callow 
youth, the Aunt thinks that this would not have oc- 
curred.” 

“Has it not occurred to her that possibly Richard 
might — might not want to be freed?” asked Lola. 

“Nothing so transcendently romantic would ever 
strike a member of our family,” said Drewitt, shak- 
ing his head with conviction. “With the Aunt mar- 
riages are made in heaven, after satisfactory enquir- 
ies have first been made on earth,” he said. 


298 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


“Do you think that you have been altogether tact- 
ful?” asked Lola demurely. 

Drewitt looked at her for a moment reproach- 
fully. 

“I did what I thought would be best for Richard,” 
he said wearily. “I even quoted verse, something 
about kind hearts being more than coronets, and she 
stopped me as if it had been Rabelaisian. I was 
relieved, as a matter of fact, for I never could re- 
member the next line. I then went on to explain 
that the two things a man must choose for himself 
are his trouserings and his wife, they being the 
things he sees most of, but she was only scandal- 
ised.” 

“And you left her in the belief that — that I — 
I ” 

“Was a female vagabond,” said Drewitt, filling 
in the blank. “Richard had set the ball in motion, 
it was not for me to interfere with the Aunt’s plans.” 

“I think you’ve both behaved abominably,” said 
Lola with conviction, “and I don’t wonder that Lady 

Drewitt ” She paused as if in search of the 

right expression. 

“Thoroughly disapproves of us,” suggested 
Beresford. 

She nodded her head vigorously. 

“Most of the trouble in this world,” said Drewitt, 
“proceeds from people jumping to conclusions. If 
a man dances twice with a girl in one evening, her 
mamma looks him up in Who's Who , or sets on foot 
enquiries as to his position or stability. But I 


LORD DREWITT: AMBASSADOR 299 

mustn’t dwell upon these trifles,” continued Drewitt. 
“I have to report to the Aunt to-night by telephone 
the result of my interview with Richard. I’m sup- 
posed to obtain the lady’s address and proceed post 
haste and forbid the banns.” 

“I shall go and see Lady Drewitt to-morrow 
afternoon,” said Lola with decision. “I think you’ve 
both treated her horribly, and I’m very cross about 
it.” 

“But, Lola,” began Beresford. 

“It’s no good,” she said, shaking her head but 
smiling. “I’m very cross.” 

That night Drewitt telephoned to his aunt the 
astounding news that the young person, as she called 
her nephew’s fiancee, would call upon her on the 
following afternoon. Her first instinct was to refuse 
to see the girl; but wiser counsels prevailed, and 
Payne was instructed accordingly. 

2 

“I feel as if the whole world has turned topsy- 
turvy. Auntie has thrown me over in despair and 
gone to Yorkshire, Mr. Quelch has already probably 
filled the niche he had reserved for me in the other 
world, and ” 

“To add to your misfortunes I am going to marry 
you,” said Beresford with a smile. 

Her eyes answered him. 

Beresford had striven to disguise the genuine re- 
lief he felt at the disappearance from his horizon of 


300 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


Mrs. Crisp. What had actually taken place Lola 
would not tell him; but he was aware that he had 
been the bone of contention. He was already begin- 
ning to make discoveries about Lola. She could keep 
her own counsel. What had happened at her inter- 
view with Lady Drewitt he could not discover. His 
most subtle and persistent questions she met either 
with a smile or an obvious evasion. All he could 
gather was that the interview had, from Lola’s point 
of view, been eminently satisfactory, and that he, 
Beresford, had been forgiven. 

“I don’t understand you, Lola,” he said, digging 
his stick into the turf at his feet; they were sitting 
under the trees in the Park opposite the Stanhope 
Gate. 

“I’m afraid you’ll find that you have married a 
very curious person,” she said wistfully; then with 
a sudden change of mood, “You won’t mind my 
being myself, Jerry, will you?” She looked up at 
him, anxiety in her voice. “I’m an awful baby 
really,” she continued. “I wonder if you’ll like me 
when you know the real me.” 

“Beggars mustn’t be choosers,” he said lightly. 

For a moment she looked at him gravely. 

“Jerry,” she said, “that hurts just a weeny, little 
bit.” 

“My darling, forgive me,” he whispered as he 
bent towards her. “I shall get accustomed to it in 
time.” There was just a suspicion of bitterness in 
his tone. 

“I’ve — I’ve got a confession to make,” she whis- 


LORD DREWITT: AMBASSADOR 301 


pered shyly, drawing in her under-lip and refusing 
to meet his eyes. “I couldn’t tell you before; but I 
think I can now — now that there are a lot of people 
about.” She glanced up at him, then dropped her 
eyes again immediately. 

“It’s about that — that night at — at your rooms.” 
Her voice trembled a little. 

He nodded. There was a pause. 

“What I told you about Lady Tringe was ” 

she hesitated and flashed a look at him from under 
her lashes, “was a fib,” she went on hurriedly. “She 
wasn’t there at all, and nobody saw me. Look! 
there’s Lord Drewitt,” she cried, clutching him 
excitedly by the coat-sleeve, as the figure of Lord 
Drewitt appeared crossing the road from the Stan- 
hope Gate. “Oh! go and fetch him, do.” 

With his head in a whirl Beresford did as he was 
bid, returning a minute later with Drewitt at his 
side. 

“I have just had the refreshing experience of see- 
ing the* ungodly vanquished, the Philistine smitten, 
and the biter bit.” Drewitt shook hands with Lola, 
then sank into a chair. 

For nearly a minute there was silence. 

“Please remember,” said Lola, “that I’m a wo- 
man, Lord Drewitt, and curious.” 

“As we are to be cousins, Lola, I think ” 

Drewitt smiled. 

“I shall call you Drew, then,” she said. “We’re 
waiting,” she added. 

“I’ve been to the Aunt to announce the failure of 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


302 

my mission,” continued Drewitt. “I postponed it 
until this afternoon, just as I always keep an olive 
to flavour my coffee. I confess I had been looking 
forward to the interview. Even Hoskins this morn- 
ing noted my unwonted cheerfulness and enquired 
if I were unwell. You must meet Hoskins, Lola, 
he and Providence between them are responsible for 
me. Providence for my coming, Hoskins for my 
being.” 

“But ” began Lola. 

“Hush!” warned Beresford. “With Drew silence 
is the only extractor.” 

Drewitt looked reproachfully at Beresford. A 
moment later he continued. 

“I left the Aunt at the parting of the religious 
ways,” he announced. 

“Whatever do you mean?” cried Lola. 

“Hitherto she has always shown herself a good 
churchwoman, blindly accepting the decrees of 
Providence, provided they did not interfere with her 
own plans,” he added. “To-day she is asking why I 
and not her dear Richard inherited the barony of 
Drewitt and all its beery traditions.” 

Lola looked from one to the other, and then 
laughed. 

“When I arrived the Aunt was explaining to the 
Vultures — I should explain, Lola, that the Vultures 
are Edward Seymour and Cecily, his wife — how she 
had always felt that Richard would be saved by the 
Challice independence. Richard will explain these 
little family details to you later,” he smiled. “As 


LORD DREWITT: AMBASSADOR 303 

for me, I can do little or nothing without Hoskins. 

“Teddy, that is, Edward Seymour,” he explained, 
“was so ill-advised as to suggest that the Aunt had 
not always regarded Richard with such favour. 
Then it was that she turned and rent him, slew him 
with the jawbone No, that would not be alto- 

gether complimentary to Richard. She told him 
that if he had half Richard’s brains, he would try to 
do something for himself instead of waiting for her 
to die. She was almost iEschylean in her grandeur. 
Poor Teddy literally wilted, and Cecily burst into 
tears; but as Cecily invariably bursts into tears at 
the least possible provocation, that was not re- 
markable.” 

Again Drewitt paused, then looking at Beresford, 
he said casually: “By the way, Richard, you are to 
be raised to my financial status ; the Aunt insists on 
allowing you two thousand a year, conditional on 
your good behaviour.” 

Beresford looked at him in a dazed manner, then 
he suddenly flushed a deep red and looked across at 
Lola, who, however, was busily engaged in digging 
holes in the turf with the point of her sunshade. 

“She regards your marrying Lola as a proof of 
your subtlety and commercial acumen. She ” 

“Please ” Lola glanced up at him pleadingly. 

“It’s all right, Lola,” smiled Beresford. “It makes 
a bit of difference. I shan’t have to come to you 
for everything.” 

“It was the two thousand pounds that laid out the 
Vultures,” continued Drewitt. “They felt just as 


304 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


the rest of the family must have felt when all that 
veal was wasted on the prodigal.” 

“I think it very good of Aunt Caroline,” said 
Lola, “and I like her.” 

Fixing his glass in his eye Drewitt gazed at her 
with interest, as if she had made a most remarkable 
statement. 

“But what about Edward?” queried Beresford. 

“Teddy was sublime.” A flicker of a smile passed 
over Drewitt’s countenance at the recollection. “He 
Was subjected to what I believe is scripturally de- 
scribed as ‘whips of scorpions,’ in my opinion an 
entirely inadequate form of punishment. His little 
soul was extracted from his body and dangled before 
his nose. He was held responsible for himself, for 
Cecily, and by implication for my own shortcomings. 
He was asked what he had done in the war, and why 
he hadn’t done it. Why he had married, and why he 
had no children. I pointed out to the Aunt that the 
morality of the observation was a little loose; but 
she ignored me. 

“He was told that he was depraved and demor- 
alising, although poor Teddy would not demoralise 
a three-inch lizard. He was held responsible for the 
German vacillation in connection with the Peace 
Treaty, and for the shortage of high-explosive shells 
in 1914. In fact, there was nothing evil the Aunt 
was able to call to mind that was not either directly 
or indirectly ascribable to what she gave us to under- 
stand was a world-wide catastrophe — the coming of 
Teddy. 


LORD DREWITT: AMBASSADOR 305 


“Teddy wilted and visibly shrank beneath her 
invective, whilst Cecily continued to cry quietly to 
herself. She reminded me very forcibly of Peter 

“Peter who?” asked Lola. 

Drewitt turned reproachful eyes upon her. 
“Surely, Lola, you are not a Free Thinker?” 

Lola laughed and shook her head. 

“She reminded me of Peter. She seemed to want 
to convey the idea that she had never previously 
even heard of Teddy; she was disowning him. Then 
came the supreme moment, pregnant with drama. 
Suddenly he sprang to his feet, his mouth working 
uncannily, little points of foam at the corners. I 
wished that Cecily had brought him on a lead. 
Looking about him wildly, he planted himself in 
front of the Aunt, and looking up at her and almost 
crying, he spluttered — 

“ ‘Damn your money, and you too. Keep it. I 
don’t want it. Take it to hell with you,’ and then he 
disappeared. 

“Personally I think he went through the door; 
but I cannot say with any degree of certainty, the 
exit was so dramatic.” 

Beresford whistled. 

“And what did Aunt Caroline say?” asked Lola. 

“She said nothing,” said Drewitt; “but from her 
looks I gathered that Teddy will have a sporting 
chance of at least some of her money.” 

“You mean ?” said Beresford. 

“I mean that Pm going to engage the services of 


306 


THE RAIN-GIRL 


an old company-sergeant-major of mine, and rein- 
force him with a few choice specimens of Billings- 
gate. It is obvious that the Aunt is susceptible to 
rhetoric — when suitably adorned,” he added as an 
afterthought. 

Drewitt turned to Lola and smiled. For some 
time the three sat silent. 

“Excuse me a moment, will you, Lola? There’s 
Ballinger, and I want to ask him about that place in 
Scotland.” 

Beresford had jumped up, and with a smile and a 
blush Lola inclined her head, and he strode off in 
pursuit of a little fair-haired man with the strut of 
a turkey. 

“Only once in a blameless life have I ever ven- 
tured upon unsolicited advice,” said Drewitt remi- 
niscently after a pause. “In a moment of mental 
abstraction I advised a man who was complaining of 
loneliness to take a wife. He took me literally, and 
the husband of the lady took half his fortune as 
damages.” 

“Is this a confession, or merely an anecdote?” 
enquired Lola demurely. 

“Neither,” was the reply. “It is autobiography, 
and history is about to repeat itself.” Drewitt 
paused and looked at Lola with a little friendly smile 
that he kept for his special friends. “Richard is an 
ass. 

Lola stiffened slightly. She looked straight across 
at him ; but Drewitt was examining the knuckles of 
his left hand. 


LORD DREWITT: AMBASSADOR 307 


“But,” he continued, “he’s rather a lovable sort 
of ass.” 

Lola smiled at him with her eyes. 

“I’m fond of Richard, Lola,” continued Drewitt, 
“and my indiscretion is in advising you to be a little 
careful about money matters.” 

“Money matters!” she repeated, screwing up her 
eyebrows with a puzzled expression. 

“Your happiness depends on Richard’s capacity 
to earn money for himself. Make him do some- 
thing, go into politics, write books, become a paid 
agitator, anything, in short. At the moment he’s as 
sore as a vanquished heavy-weight. It will help his 
self-respect. Now I’ve done,” and once more he 
smiled across at her. 

“Thank you, Drew,” she said, “I understand. 
You ” 

“Hullo! what are you two up to?” cried Beres- 
ford, who had approached unseen. 

“My dear Richard, we’ve just been discussing the 
length of your ears and the loudness of your bray,” 
said Drewitt quietly. 


THE END 


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